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A   BOOK   OF 
HAND-WOVEN   COVERLETS 


^161 


T    'TT 


A  BOOK  OF 
HAND-WOVEN 
COVERLETS 


BY 

ELIZA  CALVERT  HALL 

AUTHOR  OF  "aunt  JANE  OF  KENTUCKY,"  "tHE  LAND  OF  LONG  AGO,"  ETC. 

WITH  NUMEROUS  PLATES  IN  COLOR  AND 
OTHER  ILLUSTRATIONS 


NON-REFERT 


^lAIVAD  •  Q3S 


BOSTON 

LITTLE,   BROWN,  AND  COMPANY 

1914 


-^0  1  ^^ 


Copyright,  IQI2 
By  Little,   Brown,  and  Company 


^11  rights  reserved 


THE-PLIMPTON'PRESS-NORWOOD-MASS-U-S-A 


'..,,:. *B^iS" i'-i ^  •  V •  '•. '  *.  '  "''• 


0  l^  b 


TO    THE    MEMORY    OF 

william  wade. 

"the  gentle  MINDE 

by  gentle  deeds  is  knowne. 


It  is  a  pity  that  when  we  speak  of  art,  the 
thought  should  be  of  something  quite  remote 
from  the  life  of  all  the  people.  .  .  .  The  word 
art  ought  to  carry  as  common  and  universal  a 
meaning  as  the  words  life  and  love. 

J.    H.    DiLLARD 


CONTENTS 


•v. 
I 


I 

y 


Foreword 


I.  Long,  Long  Ago  . 
II.  A  Backward  Glance 

III.  The  Mountain  Weavers 

IV.  Coverlet  Names  . 
V.  Coverlet  Designs 

VI.  Coverlet  Colors 
VII.  The  Professional  Weaver 
VIII.  The  Storied  Coverlet  . 
IX.  The  Ancient  Coverlet 
X.  The  Heirloom  Unappreciated 


PAGE 

3 

13 

23 

35 

49 

99 

127 

169 

215 

239 

257 


LIST   OF    PLATES 

ILLUSTRATIONS  IN  COLOR 
The  John  Mellinger  Coverlet  ....     Frontispiece 

PAGE 

Lee's  Surrender  Facing  page  lo 

The  Litie  McElroy  Coverlet i6 

Rose  in  the  Wilderness 38 

The  Sally  Rodes  Coverlet        52 

Seven  Stars          64 

Pine  Bloom 76 

Youth  and  Beauty 84 

Tennessee  Trouble 92 

Fragment  of  an  Old  Coverlet  from  Danville,  111.        .      .  138 

The  Mary  Simmons  Coverlet 150 

A  Mountain  "Kiver" 218 

Betty  Teague 232 

Old  Ireland 246 

Nine  Diamonds 260 

The  Downfall  of  Paris         268 

ILLUSTRATIONS  IN  HALF-TONE 

Hickory  Leaf Facing  page  6 

Mount  Vernon 20 

A  Modification  of  Pine  Bloom 28 

[xil 


LIST    OF    PLATES 


Sunrise Facing  page  32 

King's  Flower 42 

Cat  Track 46 

Catalpa  Flower  or  Work  Complete 56 

Dog  Tracks 60 

Double  Chariot  Wheels  or  Church  Windows      ...  68 

Missouri  Trouble 72 

The  Blazing  Star 80 

The  Whig  Rose 88 

Ladies'  Delight 96 

Double  Muscadine  Hulls 102 

Single  Chariot  Wheels          106 

The  Cross no 

A  Monroe  County  Coverlet 116 

Old  Drafts  used  in  the  Kentucky  Mountains    ...  120 

Forty-Nine  Snowballs 124 

The  Betty  Dean  Coverlet         164 

Thistles  and  Lilies 168 

Irish  Chain 172 

Lover's  Knot 172 

Coverlet  showing  Masonic  Emblems        176 

Boston  Town ' '76 

Birds  of  Paradise 180 

The  John  Gerard  Coverlet 180 

The  Anne  Hay  Coverlet 184 

Lion  and  Eagle          184 

The  Double  Roses 188 

[xii] 


LIST    OF    PLATES 


Chanticleer Facing   page  i88 

Bird  of  Paradise 192 

The  Ida  P.  Rogers  Coverlet 192 

E  Pluribus  Unum 196 

Freedom's  Home 196 

Declaration  of  Independence 200 

Liberty 200 

La  France 204 

Frenchman's  Fancy         204 

Lover's  Chain  or  Lover's  Knot 208 

The  Flora  Woodbury  Coverlet 208 

The  Martha  Shepherd  Coverlet 222 

The  Deborah  Parker  Coverlet 238 

Governor's  Garden         242 

A  Variation  of  Lover's  Knot 244 

Sunrise 250 

The  Waity  Staples  Coverlet 254 

The  Anthony  Wayne  Coverlet 264 


A  Book  of  Hand-  JVoven  Coverlets 


A  Book  of 
Hand -Woven  Coverlets 


FOREWORD 

FRIEND  once  sent  me 
thirty  photographs  of 
coverlet  designs.  In  a 
burst  of  enthusiasm  over 
their  beauty  I  began  to 
write  this  book.  I  thought  the  task  a 
light  one  and  I  expected  to  see  its  com- 
pletion in  a  few  months. 

But   after    my   joyous   beginning   the 

work   grew    strangely   difficult  and   my 

progress    strangely     slow.      A     weight 

seemed  to  hang  on  pen  and  brain.    I  went 

[3] 


A   BOOK   OF   HAND-WOVEN   COVERLETS 

unwillingly  to  my  task  and  I  left  it  daily 
with  an  unaccountable  feeling  of  despair. 
Often  the  Devil  of  Failure  has  whispered 
in  my  ear:  "Give  it  up!"  But  the 
charm  of  the  subject  had  mastered  me, 
and  in  perplexity  and  discouragement  I 
plodded  on. 

At  last  a  day  came  when  I  understood 
why  the  work  was  so  hard  and  I  so  slow. 
Heretofore  I  had  written  what  Imagina- 
tion dictated,  but  now  Imagination  stood 
silent  with  folded  wings,  and  instead  of 
her  dulcet  tones  I  heard  a  harsh  voice 
that  clamored  for  "Facts!  Facts!" 

Fact  and  I  have  always  been  strangers. 

It  does  not  interest  me  to  know  that  the 

moon  is  "a  celestial  body  that  revolves 

around   the   earth   once   in   a  little  less 

[4] 


A    BOOK   OF    HAND-WOVEN    COVERLETS 

than      twenty-seven     days     and     eight 
hours." 

I  prefer  to  know  the  moon  as  Shelley 
knew  her,  an 

—  ^^  orbed  maiden, 
With  white  fire  laden.''* 

If  I  ever  used  a  fact,  I  used  it  as  a 
slender  thread  on  which  I  strung  the 
beads  of  fancy,  and  in  the  present  work 
that  process  had  to  be  reversed;  fancy 
is  the  thread  and  the  beads  are  facts. 

And  where  were  the  facts  .f*  Before  I 
could  record  them  I  had  to  go  forth  and 
find  them  in  the  jungles  of  "original  re- 
search." So  many  people  have  helped 
me  in  this  research  work  that  if  I  name 
them  all,  I  shall  seriously  invalidate  my 
claim    to   the  authorship   of  this  book. 


A    BOOK   OF    HAND-WOVEN    COVERLETS 

v^hich,  indeed,  could  never  have  been 
written  without  the  aid  of  Miss  May 
Stone  and  Miss  Katherine  Pettit  of  the 
Settlement  School  at  Hindman,  Knott 
Co.,  Ky. ;  Mrs.  Jennie  Lester  Hill,  for- 
mer Superintendent  of  Fireside  Industries 
at  Berea  College;  Mrs.  Laura  M.  Allen, 
Director  of  Weaving  in  Mechanics'  In- 
stitute, Rochester,  N.Y. ;  Miss  Elizabeth 
Dangerfield  of  Lexington,  Ky. ;  Miss 
Sallie  M.  Dougherty  of  Russellville, 
Tenn.;  Miss  Amy  Du  Puy,  Pittsburgh, 
Pa.;  Miss  Susan  Beeler  of  Fountain 
City,  Tenn.;  Mrs.  Henderson  Danger- 
field  Norman  of  Sycamore,  111.;  Miss 
Florence  Strong  of  Athol,  Ky. ;  Dr.  Wil- 
liam F.  Arnold,  Surgeon  U.S.N.,  retired; 

Miss  Madie  Woodbury  of  Danville,  111.; 
[6] 


HICKORY   LEAF 


IN  Georgia  this  design  is  called 
^'Muscadine  Hulls,"  in  Mis- 
sissippi "  Double  Muscadine  Hulls," 
in  North  Carolina  "  Hickory  Leaf" 
in  Rhode  Island  '^Double  Bow 
Knot,"  in  Kentucky  it  is  sometimes 
'^Double  Bow  Knot  "  and  some- 
times ^'Blooming  Leaf"  Probably 
^^  Lemon  Leaf"  and  '^  Olive  Leaf" 
also  belong  to  it.  All  of  the  leaf 
designs  seem  to  have  been  evolved 
from  the  ^^ Sunrise"  design. 


A    BOOK   OF    HAND-WOVEN    COVERLETS 

J.  Capps  and  Son,  Jacksonville,  111.,  and 
last,  who  should  have  been  first,  the  late 
William  Wade  of  Oakmont,  Pa.,  who  first 
made  known  to  me  the  beauty  of  the 
hand-woven  coverlet. 

Many  others  whose  names  appear  else- 
where in  this  book  have  aided  me  in  my 
search  for  rare  specimens  of  weaving  and 
my  efforts  to  bring  order  and  system  out 
of  the  chaos  of  names  and  designs  in 
which  I  found  myself  involved  at  the  be- 
ginning of  my  labor  and  in  which  I  am 
scarcely  less  involved  at  its  "ending," 
so  called. 

My  friends  say  that  for  more  than  two 
years  past  my  salutation  has  been: 

"  Have  you  an  old  coverlet  ? " 

"  Do  you  know  anybody  who  has  one  ? 
[7] 


A    BOOK    OF    HAND-WOVEN    COVERLETS 

and  do  you  know  the  names  of  any  cov- 
erlet patterns?" 

By  putting  these  questions  to  friend 
and  foe,  rich  and  poor,  high  and  low,  the 
city-bred  and  the  country-bred,  and  by 
writing  innumerable  letters  to  dwellers 
in  the  mountains  and  the  lowlands  I 
have  collected  a  pleasing  array  of  facts, 
names,  and  patterns;  but  what  are  these 
by  the  side  of  the  facts,  names,  and  pat- 
terns that  might  still  be  collected? 

If  life  were  as  long  as  art,  I  might 
come  nearer  to  the  goal  of  completion, 
but  no  dictionary  or  encyclopedia  holds 
the  knowledge  I  seek.  To  learn  what  is 
still  unknown  to  me  about  names,  drafts 
and  designs  I  would  have  to  make  a  pil- 
grimage through  the  villages  of  New  Eng- 
[8] 


A    BOOK   OF    HAND-WOVEN    COVERLETS 

land  and  the  mountains  of  North 
CaroHna,  Tennessee,  Kentucky  and  Vir- 
ginia, stopping  at  every  doorway  and 
asking  an  alms  of  information  with  such 
questions  as  these: 

"Are  '  Flourishing  Wave '  and  '  Floating 
Wave'  the  same  as  'Ocean  Wave'?" 

"What  are  the  differences  between 
'Iron  Wheel,'  'Running  Wheel,'  'Wheel 
of  Fortune,'  'Wheel  of  Time'  and  'Pilot 
Wheel'?" 

"What  are  'Muscadine  Hulls'?" 

"What  flower  is  'King's  Flower'  in- 
tended to  represent?" 

"Was  'Lee's  Surrender'  named  in 
sorrow  or  in  triumph?" 

"Is  'Penford'  the  name  of  a  place  or 
a  person?" 

[9] 


A    BOOK   OF    HAND-WOVEN    COVERLETS 

Since  I  cannot  go  in  search  of  this  in- 
formation, I  leave  to  each  reader  the  task 
of  adding  something  to  my  incomplete 
work.  On  the  blank  pages  at  the  end  of 
the  book  you  may  place  the  pictures  of 
your  family  coverlets  and  write  their 
history.  Thus  each  book  will  become  a 
collaboration,  and  I  shall  have  almost  as 
many  collaborators  as  readers. 

Some  critics  may  think  the  subject  un- 
worthy of  the  labor  I  have  bestowed  on 
it;  but  the  colonial  coverlet  is  to  Ameri- 
can art  what  the  prose  works  of  Increase 
Mather  and  the  verses  of  Anne  Brad- 
street  are  to  American  literature.  Who- 
ever tries  to  trace  the  rise  and  progress 
of  art  in  the  New  World  will  see  in  the 

colors    and    designs   of  the   hand-woven 
[lo] 


LEE'S   SURRENDER 


WOVEN  by  Ernest  D.  Chap- 
man, Clark's  Falls,  Conn. 
There  are  two  drafts  of  this  name, 
No.  I  and  No.  2.  The  above  is 
^^ Lee's  Surrender"  No.  2. 


A    BOOK    OF    HAND-WOVEN    COVERLETS 

coverlet  the  first  faint  stirrings  of  that 
spirit  which  breathes  full-awakened 
through  the  sculpture  of  St.  Gaudens  and 
Borglum,  and  the  architecture  of  Rich- 
ardson and  McKim,  and  glows  in  the 
canvases  of  Whistler,  Furness,  Sargent 
and  Abbey. 

"Art  is  the  wine  of  life,"  says  Richter, 
and  the  hand-woven  coverlet  tells  you 
that  the  humblest  artisan  who  kneels  at 
the  altars  of  Beauty  receives  from  the 
hand-  of  the  god  his  share  of  that  priceless 
draught. 


[Ill 


I 

LONG,  LONG  AGO 


LONG,  LONG  AGO 


"0  there  are  voices  of  the  Past, 
Links  of  a  broken  chain, 
Wings  that  can  bear  me  back  to  times 
Which  cannot  come  again." 

HE  house-mother  sits  at 
her  loom  weaving  in  the 
late  afternoon  hours. 
There  is  the  grace  of 
splendid  strength  in  the 
motion  of  her  arms,  and  the  beauty  of 
boundless  health  in  her  sturdy  form. 

To  and  fro  goes  the  shuttle  over  the 
warp,  and  to  and  fro  goes  the  weaver's 
thought,  over  the  water  to  Holland, 
the  home  of  her  childhood,  or  south- 
ward to  the  camp  of  Washington,  where 
[15] 


A    BOOK    OF    HAND-WOVEN    COVERLETS 

two  Stalwart  brothers  are  bearing  arms 
for  the  cause  of  freedom.  Now  she 
hears  the  water  lapping  against  the 
dyke;  or  she  stands  by  her  mother's 
side  listening  to  stories  of  the  grand- 
father who  fought  under  William  of 
Orange,  and  then  she  thinks  of  the 
news  the  lame  soldier  brought  to 
the  village  last  week  and  wonders  if 
the  battle  he  prophesied  has  been  fought. 
Memory  and  love  soften  the  stern 
face;  she  whispers  a  prayer  for  the 
safety  of  the  soldier  brothers  and 
another  prayer  for  the  victory  of  the 
patriot  army.  The  old  Dutch  clock  ticks 
loudly  in  the  corner,  and  the  clatter  of 
the  loom  makes  friendly  answer.     The 

scarlet  berries  of  the  ash-tree  press  against 
[i6] 


THE   LITIE  MCELROY  COVERLET 


A"  Kings  Flower ' '  design . 
Woven  on  the  "Old  Home 
Place'^  of  Mr.  Ala^ison  Trigg  near 
Glasgow,  Ky.y  by  Sam  Gamble,  a 
travelling  weaver.  Owned  by  Mrs. 
Clarence  Underwood  McElroy, 
Bowling  Gree?i,  Ky. 


A    BOOK   OF    HAND-WOVEN    COVERLETS 

the  tiny  panes  of  glass  and  the  sunbeams 
shining  through  them  rest  on  the  bur- 
nished pewter  vessels  over  the  chimney 
and  touch  to  a  pale  lustre  the  smooth 
braids  of  the  housewife  weaving  her  blue 
and  white  coverlet. 

Over  the  seas  they  came,  these  strong- 
limbed  daughters  of  European  lands,  from 
the  Palatinate  on  the  Rhine,  from  the 
Netherlands,  from  the  provinces  of 
France,  from  the  British  Isles,  the  can- 
tons of  Switzerland  and  the  villages  of 
Sweden  and  Norway,  bringing  with  them 
the  arts  and  customs  of  old  civilizations 
to  be  grafted  on  a  new  life  in  a  new 
world. 

The  dust  of  their  bodies  passed  long 
ago  into  flower  and  tree  as  the  strength 
[17] 


A    BOOK   OF    HAND-WOVEN    COVERLETS 

of  their  bodies  passed  into  the  making  of 
a  nation.  Their  names  are  forgotten 
and  unrecorded,  except  on  a  fallen, 
lichen-crusted  stone  in  an  old  bury- 
ing-ground  or  a  dim  page  of  family 
records  which  their  children  of  the 
third  and  fourth  generations  are  too 
busy  to  search  out  and  read.  But  in 
nearly  every  American  family  there 
is  a  certain  heirloom  which  is  a  me- 
morial to  the  sturdy  fore-mothers  of  the 
nation — a  hand-woven  coverlet  of  which 
the  very  old  will  say  in  a  tremulous  voice : 

"My  mother  spun  and  wove  it;" 
and  the  middle-aged: 

"My  grandmother  wove  it;" 

and  the  young,  touching  it  with  reverent 

curiosity,  whisper: 

[i8] 


A   BOOK   OF   HAND-WOVEN   COVERLETS 

"This  is  my  great  grandmother's  cover- 
let." 

Occultists  say  that  things  are  endowed 
with  influences,  good  or  evil,  according  to 
the  nature  of  those  who  have  owned  or 
used  them,  and  that  every  one  is  sur- 
rounded by  an  aura.  You  may  laugh  at 
such  statements,  but  I  would  not  like  to 
wear  a  jewel  that  Lucrezia  Borgia  had 
worn;  a  room  furnished  in  old  mahogany 
always  seems  to  me  a  haunted  place, 
and  often  I  have  felt  the  spells  that  go 
out  from  inanimate  objects  blotting  out 
all  consciousness  of  the  present  moment 
and  carrying  me  at  one  bound  of  thought 
and  emotion  into  ''The  Land  of  Long 
Ago." 

How  many  roads  lead  to  this  shadowy 

[19] 


A    BOOK    OF    HAND-WOVEN    COVERLETS 

land,  and  how  many  things  are  guide- 
posts  on  the  way!  The  perfume  of  an 
old-fashioned  rose,  a  bit  of  yellow  lace, 
your  grandfather's  seal,  the  pin  your 
grandmother  wore  with  a  lock  of  hair 
under  the  crystal  front,  a  bundle  of  old 
letters  tied  with  faded  ribbon,  a  book- 
mark of  time-stained  cardboard  that 
said  to  some  beloved  one  "Remember 
Me,"  or  "Beheve  Me  True,"  a  pressed 
flower  in  an  old  book,  the  brass  candle- 
stick that  used  to  stand  on  a  shining  ma- 
hogany table  along  with  the  family  Bible 
and  the  basket  that  held  your  grand- 
mother's knitting  —  but  the  spell  of  the 
past  is  not  as  strong  in  any  one  of  these 
as  it  is  in  a  coverlet  that,  like  a  family 
tradition,  has  drifted  down  to  us  of  the 

[20l 


MOUNT   VERNON 


THE  real  name  of  this  design  is 
not  known.  Miss  Sally  M. 
Dougherty  of  Russelhille,  Tenn., 
copied  the  design  from  a  coverlet 
on  one  of  the  beds  at  W ashington  s 
home  and  christened  it  "Amount 
Vernon.'^ 


i   I   I   I  ii     P 


S  S 


J 


H.  A    A    A    A    A    JL    A  -liP  %^  •) 

S„.JI 

I  311 

^„.  ^.^    ^ K  "^^ 

UK        »        -n   ?w   iWR  ^w?  WRS  >i^   ■«*  m.        m       w^ ' 


■  W  -^''i-..  j\.-.<^L  J  K-Jl-^'s^-j\^^ 


.«   hi 


SI 


A    BOOK   OF    HAND-WOVEN    COVERLETS 

present  day  to  be  held  in  honor  or  cast 
aside  in  dishonor,  but  always  seeming  to 
say: 

^^Have  you  forgotten?     Have  you  forgot- 
ten?" 

Some  of  us  have  not  forgotten. 


f2l] 


II 

A   BACKWARD   GLANCE 


II 


A  BACKWARD   GLANCE 

'Remembrance  wakes  with  all  her  busy  train.** 

^f  HEN  the  owner  of  an 
old  coverlet  unfolds  it 
to  your  view,  the  first 
words  that  come  to  her 
lips  are: 

"I  remember ." 

"I  remember,"  says  one,  "the  year 
that  this  was  woven.  I  was  just  a  little 
girl,  only  four  years  old.  Father  gave 
Mother  a  certain  number  of  sheep,  and 
when  the  sheep  were  shorn,  Mother 
sent  her  share  of  the  wool  to  Indiana  to 

be  woven.     I  remember  how  interested 

[25] 


A    BOOK   OF    HAND-WOVEN    COVERLETS 

she  was  in  the  sheep-shearing  and  how 
proud  she  was  of  her  coverlet." 

"I  remember,"  says  another,  "when  I 
was  a  Uttle  child,  here  in  New  Jersey, 
there  was  a  kitchen  full  of  darkies,  — 
the  kitchen  detached  from  the  main 
house  —  and  over  this  was  a  long  gar- 
ret. I  remember  seeing  my  old  black 
mammy  run  back  and  forth  spinning 
wool  into  yarn.  ...  I  remember  going 
with  my  grandfather  to  what  he  called 
'The  Falling  Hill.*  The  little  hamlet 
was  called  Millford,  and  it  must  have 
been  here  that  the  coverlets  were  woven. 
My  recollection  is  that  we  took  the  wool 
and  got  it  back  in  long  soft  rolls  so 
white  and  pretty  that  I  loved  to  put  my 

hands  on   it.     These   rolls  were  what  I 
[26] 


A    BOOK    OF    HAND-WOVEN    COVERLETS 

saw  spun  into  yarn.  I  know  the  blue 
thread  for  the  coverlets  was  colored  at 
home,  for  I  have  heard  of  the  dyeing. 
This  was  seventy  years  ago." 

"I  remember,"  says  another,  "when 
Mother  used  to  dye  the  thread  and  her 
nails  would  be  blue  with  indigo,  and  I 
used  to  wish  I  could  make  my  finger 
nails  that  pretty  blue  color.  I  remem- 
ber, too,  how  Mother  used  to  spin  flax 
on  the  little  flax  wheel  to  make  the 
foundation  for  her  coverlets.  Mother's 
thread  always  brought  a  higher  price 
than  anybody  else's  and  she  was  noted 
for  her  fine,  even  selvedge." 

"I  remember,"  says  a  distinguished 
southern   educator,  *'how   Mother   used 

to  spin  flax  on  the  'little  wheel.'     She 

[27] 


A    BOOK    OF    HAND-WOVEN    COVERLETS 

often  made  fishing  lines  for  me,  and 
they  were  better  in  every  respect  than 
any  twisted  Une  I  could  get  to-day. 
Our  home  was  a  farm  in  West  Virginia, 
and  we  made  at  home  all  the  woollen 
and  linen  cloth  we  used  out  of  wool 
and  flax  produced  and  prepared  at  home. 
Cotton  was  the  only  material  we  bought. 
We  wove  coverlets  with  figures,  even 
trees,  in  them.  Many  treadles  and 
many  shuttles  were  used  and  the  paper 
spread  before  the  weaver  looked  like 
a  piece  of  music.  My  mother  always 
put  in  the  web,  and  many  a  day  I  have 
spent  (in  fine  fishing  weather)  passing 
threads  through  the  'reed'  to  Mother. 
When  the  flax  was  gathered,  we  always 
had  a  flax-scutching  followed   by  a  din- 

[28] 


A    MODIFICATION    OF    PINE    BLOOM 


THE  coverlet  from  which  this 
design  was  taken  is  a  very 
old  brown  and  yellow  one  made  in 
Warren  County^  Ky-->  <^nd  ozvned 
hy  Mrs.  Emmett  G.  Logan,  Jr.,  of 
Bowling  Green,  Ky. 


A    BOOK   OF   HAND-WOVEN    COVERLETS 

ner  and  social  amusements  running  into 
the  night.  Girls  came  chiefly  to  make 
this  function  attractive  to  the  men  who 
did  the  scutching,  though  some  girls 
scutched  well." 

At  every  recollection  like  these  a  cur- 
tain lifts  and  I  see  the  life  of  an  earlier, 
sterner  time  than  mine  when  the  ques- 
tions, Wliat  shall  we  eat?  What  shall 
we  drink.?  Wherewithal  shall  we  be 
clothed.?  had  to  be  met  at  the  dawning 
of  every  day  and  answered  by  ceaseless 
toil,  the  man  wresting  the  raw  materials 
from  the  soil,  while  the  woman's  labor 
completed  the  miracle  of  clothing  and 
feeding  a  family.  The  dying  years 
leave  us  many  legacies,  but  every  gen- 
eration casts  aside  old  customs,  old  ways 
[29] 


A    BOOK    OF    HAND-WOVEN    COVERLETS 

of  thought,  old  faiths  and  old  ideals, 
as  the  forest  casts  aside  its  w^ithercd 
leafage,  and,  in  the  hurried  march  we 
latter-day  pilgrims  are  forced  to  make, 
it  may  happen  that  something  of  real 
value  will  be  purposely  thrown  away  or 
carelessly  left  by  the  wayside.  So  now 
and  then  we  should  turn  from  the  clam- 
orous present  and  go  back  in  thought 
to  that  quiet  past  where  the  roots  of 
our  being  lie.  There  is  many  a  Half- 
Way  House  on  the  road;  one  of  them 
might  be  called  "At  the  Sign  of  the 
Old  Coverlet";  and  pausing  here  we 
may  recover  certain  lost  things  un- 
known to  us  or  unremembered,  but  well 
deserving  both  knowledge  and  remem- 
brance. 

[30] 


A    BOOK    OF   HAND-WOVEN    COVERLETS 

I  think  the  Time  Spirit  must  know 
that  we  need  to  be  thus  recalled  into 
the  life  of  the  past,  for  everywhere  I 
find  the  woven  coverlet  which,  more 
than  anything  else,  seems  to  stand  as 
a  symbol  of  the  olden  times. 

I  ride  along  a  country  road  and 
through  the  open  door  of  a  farm-house  I 
have  a  glimpse  of  a  four-poster  bed  spread 
with  a  blue  and  white  "Pine  Bloom,"  or 
a  "Gentleman's  Fancy."  I  pass  a  negro 
cabin  and  on  the  clothes-line  or  the  fence 
hangs  a  bed-cover  inherited  from  "Old 
Mistress,"  spun  and  woven,  probably, 
on  the  old  plantation  in  slave  days  by 
the  skilled  fingers  of  "black  Mammy." 
I  walk  through  the  streets  of  town  when 
the  festival  of  house-cleaning  is  going 
[31] 


A    BOOK   OF   HAND-WOVEN    COVERLETS 

on,  and  over  the  railing  of  balcony  or 
porch  I  see  a  "Governor's  Garden," 
or  a  "Sunrise,"  older,  no  doubt,  than 
the  oldest  member  of  the  family,  but 
flapping  gayly  in  the  breeze,  and  flaunt- 
ing its  reds,  blues,  and  greens  in  the 
spring  sunshine  as  if  in  gay  defiance  of 
Time  the  Destroyer.  When  Novem- 
ber's frosts  and  fogs  are  in  the  air,  I 
stand  at  my  window  and  watch  the 
tobacco  wagons  come  creeping  into  town; 
and  now  and  then  under  the  tarpaulins,  rag- 
carpets  and  patchwork  quilts  that  cover 
the  rich  brown  leaves  I  see  the  unmis- 
takable colors  of  a  coverlet  —  Grand- 
mother's handiwork  put  to  such  "base 
uses,"    but  still  beautiful,  'stiU  dignified 

in  the  midst  of  its  humiliation.     I  look 
I32] 


SUNRISE 


THE  coverlet  fro7n  which  this 
design  was  taken  was  woven 
eighty  years  ago  by  Deborah  Camp- 
hell  of  Warren  County^  Ky. 
Owned  by  Mrs.  Beulah  Wrenn, 
Warren  Cou7ity,  Ky.  Colors:  pale 
blue  and  white.  A  very  fine  piece 
of  weaving. 


?;\ 


wi 


A    BOOK    OF    HAND-WOVEN    COVERLETS 

eagerly  after  it  to  see  if  the  pattern  is 
one  known  to  me  by  name,  the  creaking 
wagon  disappears  round  the  corner  in 
the  road,  and  I  turn  away,  my  heart 
and  brain  full  of  the  message  that  the 
woven  coverlet  carries  to  you  and  to  me 
from  our  great  foremothers  of  genera- 
tions ago  and  our  mountain  sisters  of 
to-day. 


[33l 


Ill 

THE   MOUNTAIN  WEAVERS 


Ill 


THE  MOUNTAIN  WEAVERS 

"  There  she  weaves  by  night  and  day, 
A  magic  weh  with  color  gay." 

HE  art  of  weaving  had 
its  beginning  in  prehis- 
toric days.  In  Greece 
nine  hundred  years  b.c. 
the  art  must  have  been 
as  far  advanced  as  it  was  in  Europe  in 
the  eighteenth  century,  for  Homer  tells 
us  that  when  Iris  flies  to  Helen  the  god- 
dess finds  her  "in  the  palace  at  her 
loom"  weaving  into  "2.  golden  web" 
the  story  of  the  Trojan  wars,  "And  the 
dire  triumph  of  her  fatal  eyes";  and  he 
clothes  Ulysses  in  "A  robe  of  military 
[37] 


A    BOOK   OF    HAND-WOVEN    COVERLETS 

purple"  into  which  Penelope  had  woven 
a  hunting  scene: 

"In  the  rich  woof  a  hound.  Mosaic  drawn. 
Bore  on,  full-stretch,  and  seized  a  dap-pled  fawn." 

Egyptian  hieroglyphics  show  the  god- 
dess Isis  with  a  shuttle  in  her  hands, 
and  Egyptians  may  have  been  the  first 
to  make  textile  fabrics,  or  perhaps  it 
was  China  twenty-five  hundred  years 
before  Christ.  All  we  really  know  is 
that  the  weaver's  art  was  borne  west- 
ward from  Egypt  and  Asia  in  the  march 
of  civilization.  Italy  was  the  first 
European  country  to  weave  cotton  and 
wool.  In  the  tenth  century  Flanders 
led  the  world  in  the  manufacture  of 
woollen  goods ;  English  wool  was  wrought 

in  Flanders,,  and  later  the  Flemings  in- 

[38] 


ROSE    IN    THE    WILDERNESS 


WOVEN  at  ''The  Fireside 
Industries,^'  Berea,  Ky. 
Loaned  for  reproduction  in  color 
by  Mrs.  Anna  Ernherg  of  Berea 
College.  "  Bo7iaparte's  March" 
and  ''Weavers  Choice'"  resemble 
"Rose  in  the  Wilderness."  The 
yellow  in  this  coverlet  is  made  from 
hickory  bark. 


,'  .  <(«-•"»-.  .V^,  .accii' 


A    BOOK    OF    HAND-WOVEN    COVERLETS 

troduced  wool-weaving  into  England. 
Early  in  the  seventeenth  century  the 
Puritans  brought  the  art  to  America, 
along  with  their  ideals  of  civil  and  relig- 
ious liberty.  When  the  Revocation  of 
the  Edict  of  Nantes  drove  the  Protes- 
tants from  France,  they  carried  their 
knowledge  of  textile  art  into  the  south- 
ern part  of  the  New  World,  and  from 
Massachusetts  to  South  Carolina  the 
sound  of  wheel  and  loom  was  mingled 
with  psalms  of  thanksgiving  for  the  right 
to  worship  God  according  to  the  dic- 
tates of  one's  own  conscience.  The 
women  of  the  old  south  considered  weav- 
ing a  most  womanly  art;  every  planta- 
tion had  its  weaving-room  and  the 
mistress  of  the  plantation  often  trained 
[39] 


A    BOOK   OF    HAND-WOVEN    COVERLETS 

the  slaves  to  spin  and  weave.  Up  to  1785 
only  hand-weaving  was  known.  Then 
science  and  invention  began  to  create 
machinery  that  made  the  human  hand 
seem  an  awkward,  clumsy  thing.  But 
there  are  some  things  that  science  and 
invention  can  never  wholly  displace. 
An  editorial  writer  in  the  London  Nation 
says: 

"In  certain  primitive  and  necessary 
things  there  lies  an  irresistible  appeal. 
We  perceive  it  in  a  windmill,  a  water- 
mill,  a  threshing-floor,  a  wine-press,  a 
cottage  loom,  a  spindle,  a  baking  oven, 
and  even  in  a  pitcher,  a  hearth-stone, 
or  a  wheel.  There  we  see  the  eternal 
necessities  of  mankind  in  their  ancient, 

most    natural    form,    and,    whether    by 
[40] 


A    BOOK    OF    HAND-WOVEN    COVERLETS 

long  association  with  the  satisfaction  of 
some  need,  or  simply  by  their  fitness 
for  utility,  they  have  acquired  a  peculiar 
quality  of  beauty." 

This  "peculiar  quality  of  beauty"  and 
its  "irresistible  appeal"  will  always  keep 
the  hand-loom  and  the  spinning-wheel 
from  passing  into  the  musty  realm  of 
the  obsolete.  Moreover,  the  tide  of 
emigration  that  brought  our  ancestors 
to  America  still  flows  between  the  old 
world  and  the  new,  and  with  the  immi- 
grants come  the  wheel,  the  loom  and 
the  manual  skill  found  in  many  Euro- 
pean countries  where  the  handicrafts  have 
always  been  held  in  honor.  Ten  years 
ago  a  Swedish  family  settled  in  the  wilds 
of  Edmonson  County,  Kentucky.  Their 
[41] 


A    BOOK    OF    HAND-WOVEN    COVERLETS 

farm  to-day  is  a  bit  of  old  Sweden  in 
a  Kentucky  setting,  for  rugs,  clothing, 
and  bed-covering  are  all  homespun, 
home-dyed,  and  home-woven.  In  the 
mountains  of  Virginia,  North  Carolina, 
Tennessee,  and  Kentucky  women  are 
working  at  wheel  and  loom  just  as 
their  great-great-grandmothers  worked. 
Time  and  change,  like  two  tired  trav- 
ellers, seem  to  have  paused  by  the  way- 
side and  fallen  asleep;  and  to-day 
repeats  the  tale  of  a  century  or  more 
ago.  Sometimes  the  life  of  the  low- 
lands and  the  life  of  the  highlands  meet 
in  a  settlement  school,  and  there  comes 
a  renaissance  of  the  arts  of  weaving  and 
spinning.  The  mountain  woman  learns 
the  worth  of  her  work;  old  drafts  are 
[42] 


KING'S  FLOWER 


w 


OVEN  in  Knott  Co.,  Ky. 


A  BOOK  OF  HAND-WOVEN  COVERLETS 

brought  to  light;  old  secrets  of  dyeing 
are  unearthed  and  the  mountain  cover- 
let goes  forth  to  teach  the  world  that 
"Art  is  not  something  to  be  pre-empted 
by  aristocracy." 

In  the  mountains  of  Knott  County, 
Kentucky,  on  Troublesome  Creek  there 
is  a  settlement  school, ^  and  at  one  end 
of  the  long  hall  in  the  main  building 
you  will  find  the  slab  settle,  the  slab 
cupboard,  the  reel,  the  big  wheel  for 
spinning  cotton  and  wool,  the  little  flax 
wheel,  and  a  sled  loom  over  a  hundred 
years  old.  At  the  loom  sits  a  moun- 
tain girl   and   she  is   called  —  listen,   ye 

lovers    of   music !  —  she    is    called    Dal- 

1  Since  this  was  written  the  school  was  burned 
to  the  ground  and  the  old  loom  perished  in  the 
flames. 

[43] 


A    BOOK    OF    HAND-WOVEN    COVERLETS 

manutha,  a  name  that  might  have  de- 
scended to  her  from  some  Saxon  princess; 
or  perhaps  it  is  Cynthia,  name  beloved 
of  the  EUzabethan  poets.  She  is  w^eav- 
ing  a  coverlet,  and  as  she  weaves  she 
looks  at  a  yellow  strip  of  paper  on  which 
her  mother's  mother  traced  the  lines 
and  figures  of  the  draft. 

Thoreau  says  that  the  value  of  a 
thing  is  determined  by  the  amount  of 
life  that  goes  into  it.  If  Dalmanutha 
and  Cynthia  valued  their  work  accord- 
ing to  Thoreau's  standards,  only  a  queen 
or  a  millionaire  could  possess  one  of 
their  coverlets,  for  almost  a  year  of  a 
woman's  life  goes  into  the  making  of 
a  mountain  **kiver."  It  is  just  as  if  a 
painter  had  to  manufacture  his  can- 
[44] 


A    BOOK   OF    HAND-WOVEN    COVERLETS 

vas,  brushes,  easel,  palette,  and  paints, 
or  the  sculptor  go  to  the  quarry  and  dig 
out  a  block  of  marble  for  his  statue. 

In  the  old  days  a  linen  thread  was 
used  for  the  warp,  and  flax  had  to  be 
grown,  hackled,  and  spun.  Now  the 
coverlet  is  of  cotton  overshot  with 
wool,  and  these  materials,  too,  are  a 
home  product.  The  women  work  in 
the  field,  hoeing  the  cotton,  gathering 
it  when  it  is  ripe,  picking  it,  carding 
it,  and  spinning  it.  The  sheep  must 
be  sheared  and  the  wool  picked,  washed, 
carded,  and  spun.  Then  they  must 
dig  roots,  collect  the  barks  of  differ- 
ent trees,  set  the  *' blue-pot"  and  make 
the  dyes  according  to  ancestral  meth- 
ods. When  all  this  drudgery  is  finished, 
[45] 


A    BOOK    OF    HAND-WOVEN    COVERLETS 

the  mountain  w^oman  seats  herself  at 
the  loom;  her  bodily  weariness  falls 
from  her  like  a  garment;  she  is  no 
longer  a  tired  drudge,  she  is  an  artist, 
and  she  breathes  the  diviner  air  of  that 
region  where  beautiful  things  are  cre- 
ated. If  a  sculptor  or  a  painter  should 
enter  her  cabin  door  she  might  greet 
him  as  a  sister  greets  a  brother;  and 
I  think  that  if  the  God  of  Beauty  be- 
came incarnate  and  walked  the  earth 
searching  for  his  most  faithful  wor- 
shipper, he  would  not  find  what  he  sought 
in  any  studio  or  art-shop;  his  search 
would  end  on  some  southern  mountain, 
among  gaunt,  haggard  women  toiling 
for  two  seasons  to  make  the  thread  for 

shuttle    and    loom,    spending    the    short 
[46] 


CAT   TRACK 


MANY  imaginations  have  exer- 
ercised  themselves  on  this 
pattern  and  the  result  is  many 
names:  ''Cat  Track^^  "Snail 
Trail,"  "Winding  Fine/'  "Trail- 
ing Fine/'  "  Twining  Fine/'  and 
"Dogwood  Blossom."  Woven  by 
Aunt  Betsey  Thornas,  Pine  Grove ^ 
Ky.  Owned  hy  Miss  Elizabeth  Dan- 
gerfield,  Lexington,  Ky.  "Wind- 
ing Girl"  is  very  similar  to  "Cat 
Track,"  and  "Old  Roads"  is  one 
of  its  modifications. 


A    BOOK    OF    HAND-WOVEN    COVERLETS 

winter  days  weaving  a  fabric  that  will 
last  to  the  third  and  fourth  genera- 
tion, and  finally  christening  their  work 
at  the  springs  of  fancy  with  a  name 
that  sounds  oftentimes  like  a  song  or 
a  poem. 


47 


IV 

COVERLET   NAMES 


IV 


COVERLET   NAMES 

'' What's  in  a  name?'* 

IT  was  Juliet,  not 
Shakespeare,  who  asked 
*' What's  in  a  name?" 
The  man  who  knew  all 
hearts  knew  that  **a  rose 
by  any  other  name"  would  not  smell  as 
sweet.  Call  a  rose  a  nettle  and  at  once 
it  loses  half  its  rose  nature.  What  name 
but  rose  could  fit  the  full-petaled,  fragrant 
flower  we  call  the  queen  of  flowers  ^.  And 
the  individual  name  must  fit  the  individ- 
ual flower.  Who  cares  for  a  rose  called 
the  Mrs.  James  Brown.?  A  rose  should 
[51] 


A    BOOK    OF    HAND-WOVEN-COVERLETS 

be  a  Duchess  de  Brabant,  a  Devonien- 
sis,  or  an  Empress  of  India.  A  rose 
whose  name  is  lost  is  a  perpetual  vex- 
ation to  the  gardener,  for  with  the  name 
goes  part  of  the  thing  named.  If  Venus 
were  "Mary  Jane,"  and  Juno  "Maria" 
instead  of  the  Goddess  of  Love  and  the 
Queen  of  Heaven,  there  would  be  two 
plain  kitchen-maids.  The  christening 
of  a  child  is  a  matter  that  calls  for 
divine  guidance,  for  that  which  we  call 
our  "identity"  depends  largely  on  our 
name.  If  places  and  people  should  sud- 
denly lose  their  old  names  and  acquire 
new  ones,  we  would  be  like  the  builders 
of  the  Tower  of  Babel  when  the  confu- 
sion   of    tongues    came    on    them,    and 

when  we  lose  the  faculty  of  remember- 

[52] 


THE   SALLY  RODES   COVERLET 


HISTORY  unknown.  Name 
of  design  probably  '^  Nine 
Snowballs''  Owned  by  Miss  Sally 
Rodes,  Bowling  Green,  Ky. 


■.wmwyjiijwi.  II 


>•■    ♦     tumtm 


•   •*     iwiMMi    -»'■-♦■■  .(mmn   -^>.  -^-w 


■naiifitia 


.  ♦«-♦-■■•    ■Mlllll    .-♦.    •♦  • 


Ib 


n 


II 


T  i  nn  I  I  SMI  I  I 


ii«iii;ujiii«ii 


i.^ 


*      * 


♦  •     •♦■■■ 


♦     -♦ 


« •■■■ 

♦   -■♦'•" 


I  I  ■ 


••'■■■♦-• 


sttmiin 


t4MiMH>      *-  '  -* 


»     «     MNMMt-     *    *     mmm    ■*•    • 

i:iiii«ti 

;K;i:M'ti:«iiiilMi 


A    BOOK    OF    HAND-WOVEN    COVERLETS 

ing  names,  we  are  like  travellers  astray 
on  a  road  that  has  no  guide-posts. 
There  was  a  time  when  the  whole 
Aryan  race  believed  that  a  man's  name 
was  not  only  a  part  of  himself  but  that 
it  was  the  part  we  call  the  soul,  and 
the  importance  we  attach  to  names  is 
an  outgrowth  of  this  race-belief. ^ 

Instead  of  asking:  "What's  in  a 
name?"  we  should  exclaim  with  an- 
other poet: 

"  Who  hath  not  owned  with  rapture-smitten  frame 
The  power  of  grace,  the  magic  of  a  name?^' 

But  only  one  who  has  studied  the 
names  of  coverlet  patterns  can  know  the 
full  depth  of  magic  that  a  name  can  hold. 

*  See  "The  Evil  Eye,"  by  Frederick  Thomas 
Elworthy. 

[53  I 


A    BOOK    OF    HAND-WOVEN    COVERLETS 

Here  are  the  flowery,  leafy,  and  poetic 
names.     Listen  how  sweetly  they  run: 
Flower  of  the  Mountain  (N.  C). 
Sunrise   on   the   Walls   of  Troy. 
Rose  in  the  Wilderness  (Ky.). 
World's  Wonder  (Ky.). 
Wonder  of  the  Forest  (Va.). 
Wide  World's  Wonder. 
Rose  of  the  Valley. 
Old  Roads  (W.  Va.). 
Lily  of  the  West. 
Spring  Flower. 
Fading  Leaf. 

Kentucky  Snowballs  (Ky.). 
Flowers  of  Edinboro  (Ky.  and  Tenn.). 
Winding  Vine 
Trailing  Vine 
Dogwood  Blossom 
[54 


(Ky.  and  Tenn.). 


A    BOOK   OF    HAND-WOVEN    COVERLETS 


Rose  in  the  Garden  (N.  C). 
Sunflower. 
Laurel  Blossom. 
Pine  Top. 
Maple  Leaf. 
Snow  Drop. 
Pine  Burr. 
Olive  Leaf. 

Islands  of  the  Sea  (Conn.). 
Path  of  the  Sunbeam  (Maine). 
Single  Snowballs. 
Rose  of  Sharon  (Ky.). 
Lily  of  the  Valley  (N.  C). 
Mountain  Rose. 
Peony  Leaf  (Va.). 
Pomegranate. 
Primrose  and  Diamonds. 
Governor's  Garden. 
[55] 


A    BOOK    OF    HAND-WOVEN    COVERLETS 


Granny's  Garden  (Ky.). 

King's  Garden  (Maine). 

Pansies  and  Roses  in  the  Wilderness. 

Rose  and  Diamonds. 

Roses  and  Pinies  in  the  Wilderness. 

Rosy  Walk. 

Snowball  and  Dewdrop. 

Wandering  Vine. 

China  Leaves. 

Dogwood  Rose. 

Five  Snowballs. 

Flowers  of  Canaan  (1827). 

Flowery  Vine. 

Folding  Leaf. 

Four  Snowballs. 

Lemon  Leaf  (Ky.). 

Mountain  Flower  (Tenn.). 

Pine  Bloom  (Ky.). 
[56] 


CAT  A  LP  A  FLOWER  or   WORK 
COMPLETE 


THE  former  is  the  North  Caro- 
lina, the  latter  the  Alabama, 
name.  In  Kentucky  it  is  some- 
times called  ^^ Lady  s  Fancy^^  and 
'' Gentleman^ s  Fancy. ^^ 


A    BOOK    OF    HAND-WOVEN    COVERLETS 

Catalpa  Flower. 

Sixteen  Snowballs. 

King's  Flower  (Ky.  and  N.  C). 

Twining  Vine  (Ky.). 

Red  Rose  (Va.). 

Rose  in  Bloom. 

Rose  in  the  Blossom. 

Orange  Trees. 

Rose  and  Blossoms. 

Rose  and  Compass. 

Hickory  Leaf. 

Snowballs. 

Wreaths  and  Roses  (Tenn.). 

Magnolia  (Tenn.). 

Fig  Leaf. 

Holly  Leaf. 

Leaf  and  Snowball. 

Rose  Leaf  and  Bud. 

[57] 


A    BOOK    OF    HAND-WOVEN    COVERLETS 

Rosebud. 
Reed  Leaf. 
Nine  Snowballs. 
Forty-Nine  Snowballs. 
Blooming  Flower. 
Indiana  Frame  Rose  (N.  C). 
Flowers  of  Lebanon  (Mass.). 
Flowery  Plains  (Tenn.). 
Bachelor's  Buttons  (Tenn.). 
Primrose  (1813,  Conn.). 
Shamrock  (Tenn.). 
Cluster  of  Vines. 
Rose  in  the  Valley. 
Piney  Rose  (N.  C). 
Snowball  and  Leaf. 
Rose  Walk  (Sweden). 


[58I 


(Ky.). 


A    BOOK    OF    HAND-WOVEN    COVERLETS 

And  the  plain,  prosaic  names  and  the 
grotesque  ones,  such  as: 

Ginny  Fowle  (Va.  and  Ky.). 
Doors  and  Windows 
Windows  and  Doors 
Window  Sash  (N.  C). 
Locks  and  Dams  (Ky.). 
Dollars  and  Cents  (Ky.). 
Rattlesnake  Trail  (N.  Y.). 
Spectacles  (N.  C). 
Sixteen  Squares. 
Sugar  Loaf  (Tenn.  and  Ky.). 
Bachelor's  Thumb  (Ky.). 
Rocky  Mountain  Cucumber. 
Wild  Mountain  Cucumber  (R.  L). 
Cat  Track  (Ky.). 
Fool's  Puzzle  (Tenn.). 
Wandering  (Winding)  Blades  and  Fold- 
ing Windows  (Tenn.  and  N.  C). 
[59] 


A    BOOK    OF    HAND-WOVEN    COVERLETS 

Winding    Leaves    and    Folding    Win- 
dows (Tenn.  and  N.  C). 

Snail  Trail  (Ky.  and  Tenn.). 

Log  Cabin. 

Double  Chain. 

Rattlesnake. 

Dog  Tracks  (Mass.). 

Sister  Blankets. 

Dimity. 

Shuckeroones  (R.  L). 

Double  Compass. 

Bird's  Eye. 

Flowerpot. 

Orange  Peeling. 

Bricks  and  Blocks. 

Double  Table. 

Four  Times  (Va.). 

Green  Vails. 

[60] 


DOG    TRACKS 


WOVEN  in  1775.  Colors  blue 
and  red.  Owned  by  Mrs. 
Charles  Stebbins,  Deerfield,  Mass. 
Also  called  "  Virginia  Beauty.'" 


vv 


..  AS  ^  ^  *»  ,'A^^     -  *• 


m.M 


.s  r 


A    BOOK    OF    HAND-WOVEN    COVERLETS 

Hen  Scratch  (Ky.). 

Buckens  and  Owls  (R.  I.). 

Huckleberry. 

Wheels  and  Squares  (Tenn.). 

Forty-Nine  Diamonds. 

Stripes  and  Squares. 

Checkers. 

Cross  Roads. 

Hail  Storm  (N.  C). 

Pea  Fowl. 

Cat's  Paw. 

Summer  and  Winter  Wheel   Draught 

(1825). 

Snow  Storm. 

Snow  Trail. 

Ice  Balls. 

Honeycomb  (N.  Y.). 

Little  Window  Sash  (Va.). 
f6il 


A    BOOK    OF    HAND-WOVEN    COVERLETS 

Number  Two   1    ,^,   . 
(Va.). 
Number  Three  J 

Snake  Shed. 

Alabama  Squares. 

White  House  or  American  Beauty. 

Arrow  (N.  C). 

Reed  Canes,  Panel  Doors  and  Window 

Sash  (N.  C). 

Windows  (Tenn.). 

Window  Sashes. 

Here  are  the  various  "Beauties": 

Kaintuck  Beauty  (Ky.). 
Parson's  Beauty  (N.  C). 
Captured  Beauty. 
Stolen  Beauty  (Vt.). 
California  Beauty. 
Lasting  Beauty  (Va.). 

[62] 


A    BOOK    OF    HAND-WOVEN    COVERLETS 

Virginia  Beauty. 
Petersburg  Beauty  (Pa.). 
Rocky  Mountain  Beauty. 
Alabama  Beauty. 
North  Carolina  Beauty. 
Missouri  Beauty  (N.  C). 
Royal  Beauty. 
Troy's  Beauty  (1826). 
Baltimore  Beauty. 
Boston  Beauty. 
Everybody's  Beauty. 
American  Beauty. 
Four  Square  Beauty. 
Richmond  Beauty. 
Beauty  of  New  York  (1803). 

Then  come    the    *' Fancies,"    "Favor- 
ites," and  "Delights": 

[63] 


A    BOOK   OF   HAND-WOVEN    COVERLETS 

Rich  Man's  Fancy  (N.  C). 

Young  Man's  Fancy. 

Gentleman's  Fancy. 

Lady's  Fancy. 

Little  Girl's  Fancy. 

Dutchman's  Fancy. 

Sally's  Fancy. 

Farmer's  Fancy. 

French  Fancy. 

Frenchman's  Fancy. 

Maiden's  Fancy. 

Bachelor's  Fancy  (R.  L). 

Diaman's  Fancy. 

Isaac's  Favorite  (Tenn.  and  N.  C). 

Frenchman's  Favorite. 

Mother's  Favorite  (Tenn.). 

Ladies'  Delight. 

Bachelor's  Delight. 
[64I 


SEVEN   STARS 


WOVEN  by  Mrs.  Elmeda 
Walker,  N.C.  In  Mc- 
Dowell County,  N.C,  this  pattern 
is  called  ''Sea  Star"  or  "Sea  Shell." 
In  Union  County,  Tenn.,  it  is  "Isle 
of  Patmos";  in  East  Tennessee, 
"  Gentleman  s  Faiicy."  The  cover- 
let from  zvhich  the  design  is  taken 
was  sent  from  the  Allansta^id  Cot- 
tage Industries,  Asheville,  N.C, 
hy  Miss  Harriet  C  Wilkie.  Yel- 
low made  from  peach  leaves. 


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wt^ll^fc^J^j- =^  1    I    I    (  ^  ¥-1-1 


'  II  iiini  I  ir  I 


'i^il 


A    BOOK    OF    HAND-WOVEN    COVERLETS 

Wheeler's  Delight. 
Solomon's  Delight. 
Queen's  Delight. 
King's  Delight. 

Here  are  the  names  celestial: 

The  Rising  Sun. 

The  Star  of  Venus. 

Sea  Star  (N.  C). 

Sunrise  (Ky.). 

Virginia  Star. 

Blazing  Star. 

Little  Blazing  Star. 

Sun,  Moon,  and  Stars. 

Morning  Star. 

Seven  Stars  (N.  C). 

Lone  Star  of  Texas. 

Star  of  the  East  (N.  C). 
[65] 


A    BOOK   OF   HAND-WOVEN    COVERLETS 

And  the  three  ''Waves": 
Ocean  Wave. 
Floating  Wave. 
Flourishing  Wave. 

Sometimes    the    name   is   of   a    place 
or  a  person : 

Old  Duckett  (N.  C). 

Owsley  Forks  (Ky.). 

Old  Virginia. 

Cope  (Tenn.). 

Hixson  (Tenn.). 

Eve  Mast  (Tenn.). 

Cassie  Rogan  (Tenn.). 

South  County. 

Brush  Valley  (Md.). 

Miss  Chester  (N.  C). 

St.  Ann's  Robe  (Tenn.). 
[66] 


A    BOOK  OF  HAND-WOVEN   COVERLETS 

Baltimore  Street  (Md.). 

Mary  (N.  C). 

Ellen  Eggers'  Counterpane  Draught. 

Murphy's  Legacy  (Tenn.). 

Isle  of  Patmos  (Tenn.). 

Once  in  a  while  you  find  a  sentimental 
name  such  as: 

Lonely  Heart  (Ky.). 
Lover's  Knot  (Pa.). 
True  Lover's  Knot  (Va.). 
Lover's  Chain  (Pa,). 
Soldier's  Return  (Tenn.). 
Friendship  (Ky.). 
Girl's  Love. 

Then  there  is  a  collection  of  "Wheels": 

Penford  Chariot  Wheels  (Ky.). 
[67] 


A    BOOK    OF    HAND-WOVEN    COVERLETS 

Single  Chariot  Wheels  (Ky.). 

Iron  Wheel  (N.  C). 

Sixteen  Wheel  Chariot  (Tenn.). 

Wheel  of  Time  (Minn.). 

Running  Wheel  (Ky.). 

Wheel  of  Fortune  (Minn.). 

Methodist  Wheel  (N.  C). 

Charity  Wheel. 

Wheels  of  Fancy. 

Pilot  Wheel  (Ky.). 

Four  Wheels. 

Sixteen  Chariot  Wheels  (Tenn.). 

Single  Wheel. 

Wheels  and  Squares. 

And  a  casket  of  ** Diamonds": 

Crown  of  Diamonds  (N.  C). 

Crown  and  Diamonds. 

[68  1 


DOUBLE    CHARIOT    WHEELS    or 
CHURCH  WINDOWS 


THESE  names  point  to  an 
English  origin,  but  the  pat- 
tern is  also  found  in  Scandinavian 
weaving.  The  four  ''chariot  wheeW^ 
separated  by  the  arms  of  a  cross 
suggest  a  rose  window  in  an  Eng- 
lish cathedral. 


A    BOOK    OF    HAND-WOVEN    COVERLETS 

Heart  and  Diamond. 
Double  Diamond. 
Nine  Block  Diamond. 
Square  and  Diamond. 
Cross  and  Diamond. 
Eight  Block  Diamond. 
Broken  Diamond  (N.  C). 
Half  Diamond. 
The  King's  Diamond. 

And  more  interesting  than  all  others 
are  the  political  or  historical  names: 

Indian  March. 
Indian  War. 
Indian  Warfare. 
Indian  Camp. 
Braddock's  Defeat  (Ky.). 

Battle  of  Richmond. 

[69] 


A    BOOK   OF    HAND-WOVEN    COVERLETS 


Maid  of  Orleans  (Tenn.). 

Bonaparte's  March. 

Bonaparte's  Retreat. 

Cornwallis'  Victory  (Ky.). 

Washington's  Victory. 

Washington's  Diamond  Ring  (Va.). 

Lady  Washington's  DeUght. 

Martha  Washington's  Choice. 

Jay's  Fancy. 

Lafayette's  Fancy. 

Jefferson's  Fancy  (N.  J.). 

Perry's  Victory. 

Battle  Union. 

Mexican  Banner  (Tenn.). 

Polk  and  Dallas. 

Travis'  Favorite. 

Whig  Rose. 

Jackson's  Army. 

[70] 


A    BOOK   OF    HAND-WOVEN    COVERLETS 

Colonel  Jackson's  Army. 
Democrat  Victory  (N.  C). 
Missouri  Trouble. 
Tennessee  Trouble. 
Confederate  Flag. 
Lee's  Surrender. 

And  still  there  remains  a  mighty  host 
of  unclassified  names: 

Cuckoo's  Nest  (Ky.). 
Tennessee  Lace  (Ky.). 
Broken  Snowballs. 
The  Globe  (Ky.). 
The  Bride's  Table  (Ky.). 
The  Sea  Shell. 
Double  Bow  Knot. 
Irish  Chain. 
Weaver's  Choice. 

[71] 


A    BOOK    OF    HAND-WOVEN    COVERLETS 

Weaver's  Pleasure. 

Flannery. 

Federal  Knot. 

Waffle  Weave. 

Scarlet  Balls. 

Queen's  Patch  (Ky.). 

Work  Complete. 

Double  Muscadine  Hulls. 

Winding  Girl  (Ky.). 

Queen's  Puzzle. 

Church  Windows  (Ky.). 

Young  Lady's  Perplexity  (Ky.). 

Tennessee  Circles. 

Tennessee  Trouble  in  North  Carolina. 

Leopard  Spots  (Tenn.). 

New  Jersey  Dream. 

Kentucky  Snowflakes. 

Queen  of  England  (Va.). 
[72] 


AIISSOURI   TROUBLE 


IN  the  Ke7itucky  viountains  this 
pattern  is  called  by  the  above 
name.  In  North  Carolina  it  is 
^'  Spectacles, ^^  or       ^'Mountain 

Flower.'^     The      Spectacle     square 
forms     a     part      of      "  Tennessee 
Trouble.'^ 


A    BOOK    OF    HAND-WOVEN    COVERLETS 

Squares  of  England. 
Rings  and  Flowers  of  Virginia. 
Lady's  Fancy  Draught. 
Mission  Draught. 
Prussian  Diaper. 
Summer  and  Winter. 
Queen's  Household. 
Bird's-Eye  Coverlet. 
Block  Coverlet. 

Blue    and    White    Coverlet    Number 
Three. 

Capa's  Number  Five. 
Compass  Diaper. 
Compass  Work. 
Cross-a-Wise    (Ireland,    1769). 
Flag  of  Our  Union. 
Flag  Work. 
Freemason's  Walk. 
[73] 


A    BOOK    OF    HAND-WOVEN    COVERLETS 

Gardener's  Note. 

Single  Chain. 

Job's  Trouble  (Tenn.). 

Spotted  Leopard  (Tenn.). 

Old  Glory. 

Little  Checked. 

Federal  City  (Ky.). 

Catch  Me  If  You  Can. 

Forty-Niners. 

The  Union  Draught  (1827). 

Fox  Trail  (N.  C). 

Guess  Me  (N.  C). 

Leopard  Skin  (N.  C). 

Venus. 

Birds  of  the  Air  (N.  Y.). 

And  I  do  not  know  how  many  more 
there  may  be,  hidden  —  like  gems  in  a 
[74I 


A    BOOK    OF    HAND-WOVEN    COVERLETS 

mine  —  under  the  failing  memories  of 
old  mountain  w^omen  or  country  folk, 
w^hose  mothers  and  grandmothers  prac- 
tised the  weaver's  art. 

Do  you  remember  the  "charm  string" 
you  had  when  you  were  a  little  girl, 
each  button  holding  in  its  crystal  depth 
a  reminder  of  the  one  who  gave  it  and 
the  circumstances  under  which  it  was 
given  ?  As  I  collected  the  names  of  these 
coverlet  patterns  it  seemed  to  me  I  was 
a  child  again  and  the  list  of  names  my 
*' charm  string."  Over  and  over  I  tell 
these  names  as  a  devotee  tells  the  beads 
of  her  rosary;  some  are  windows  through 
which  I  look  into  the  lives  of  my  moun- 
tain sisters,  and  some  are  tiny  caskets 
holding  "infinite  riches  in  a  little  room," 
[75] 


A    BOOK    OF    HAND-WOVEN    COVERLETS 

a  flash  of  humor,  a  gleam  of  tear-drops,  a 
flight  of  fancy,  a  poet's  imagery,  a 
woman's  longing,  a  page  of  history. 

"Star  of  the  East,"  "Rose  in  the 
Wilderness,"  "Rose  in  the  Garden," 
"Star  of  Venus,"  "Wonder  of  the  For- 
est," "Flower  of  the  Mountain,"  "Rose 
Leaf  and  Bud,"  "Sunrise  on  the  Walls 
of  Troy,"  "Rose  in  the  Valley,"  "Wreaths 
and  Roses,"  and  "Morning  Star"  are 
not  merely  poetical,  they  are  poetry  it- 
self. The  weavers  who  gave  these  names 
to  their  coverlet  designs  were  poets, 
but  they  died  "with  all  their  music  in 
them"  except  the  few  notes  we  hear  in 
those  simple  rhythmic  phrases  that  one 
loves  to  say  over  and  over  with  a  regret- 
ful thought  of  the  woman  whose  soul 
[76] 


PINE   BLOOM 


WOVEN  at  ''The  Fireside 
Industries,''^  Berea,  Ky. 
Loaned  for  reproduction  in  color 
by  Mrs.  Anna  Ernberg,  Superin- 
tendent of  Weaving  at  Berea  Col- 
lege. Red  dyed  with  madder. 
Woven  on  an  enlarged  scale  this 
pattern  becomes  ''Sea  Star,"  "Sea 
Shell,"  "Isle  of  Patmos,"  " Gentle- 
man s  Fancy,"  and  "  Lady  s  Fancy  " 
according  to  the  locality  in  which  it 
is  woven. 


A    BOOK    OF    HAND-WOVEN    COVERLETS 

held  something  for  which  she  had  no 
means  of  expression  except  the  weav- 
ing and  naming  of  a  coverlet.  Some- 
times a  design  possesses  two  names, 
one  poetic  and  the  other  prosaic.  The 
round  flower-like  figure  which  the  south- 
ern mountaineer  calls  "Dogwood  Blos- 
som" or  "Snowball"  is  "Dog  Tracks" 
and  "Catspaw"  in  the  New  England 
States;  and  "Hen  Scratch"  is,  I  am  sure, 
the  prosaic  name  for  the  beautiful  "Sun- 
rise" pattern.  It  was  a  realist  and  a 
prosaist  who  named  "Sixteen  Squares" 
and  a  weaver  who  belonged  to  the  roman- 
tic school  changed  it  to  "Sixteen  Snow- 
balls." There  is  a  name  obvious  and 
a  name  obscure.  I  can  see  the  fitness 
of  "Sea  Star"  and  "Pine  Bloom,"  but 
[77  \ 


A    BOOK    OF    HAND-WOVEN    COVERLETS 

to  find  a  "Catalpa  Flower"  in  the  pat- 
tern of  that  name  requires  the  same 
kind  of  imagination  that  could  see  Arc- 
turus  with  his  bow  in  the  starry  heavens. 
Perhaps  a  catalpa  tree  stood  at  the  door 
of  the  weaver's  home,  and  perhaps  it 
bloomed  the  day  she  took  her  coverlet 
from  the  loom.  (In  North  Carolina, 
by  the  way,  "Catalpa"  is  pronounced 
"Catawba.")  "Shuckeroones,"  "Rocky 
Mountain  Cucumbers,"  "Bachelor's 
Thumb,"  "Murphy's  Legacy,"  and 
"Buckens  and  Owls"  belong  to  the  list 
of  the  queer  and  fantastic.  "Buckens 
and  Owls"  was  for  a  while  one  of  the 
inexplicables,  and  "Shuckeroones"  still 
is.  I  thought  "buckens"  was  an  obso- 
lete word  and  I  looked  for  it  in  Halli- 
[78] 


A    BOOK    OF    HAND-WOVEN    COVERLETS 

well's  Dictionary  of  Archaic  and  Pro- 
vincial Words,  published  in  London  in 
1850,  but  found  it  not.  Then  to  the 
unabridged  dictionary,  where  it  is  seen 
in  its  correct  spelling:  hue  keens.  It  is 
an  Anglo-Irish  word  which  formerly 
denoted  a  young  man  of  the  second-rate 
gentry  or  a  younger  son  of  the  poorer 
aristocracy  who  aped  the  manners  of  the 
wealthy.  Froude  uses  the  word  thus 
in  "Two  Chiefs  of  Dunboy":  "The 
buckeens  who  had  been  his  compan- 
ions sate  the  night  through  drinking 
whiskey  in  the  hall  at  Derreen." 

The   buckeen   and    the   owl   are   both 

night-birds,    hence    the    association    of 

ideas  that  brings  the  two  words  together, 

but  why  should   they   be   applied   to  a 

[79] 


A    BOOK    OF    HAND-WOVEN    COVERLETS 

coverlet  pattern    is    something    no    dic- 
tionary can  tell  us. 

"Travis  Favorite,"  "Whig  Rose," 
and  "Polk  and  Dallas"  doubtless  origi- 
nated in  Tennessee.  "World's  Won- 
der" is  an  exclamation  of  pure  delight 
and  self-congratulation.  She  had  toiled 
long  at  wheel  and  dye-pot  and  loom. 
She  had  cut  the  breadths  and  sewed 
them  together  and  hemmed  the  ends 
with  coarse  homespun  threads.  Then 
she  swept  and  garnished  her  room,  and 
spread  the  new  coverlet  over  the  high 
fluffy  feather-bed  and  retreated  to  a 
distance  to  see  the  effect.  Ah,  the  snowy 
white  of  that  foundation,  and  the  rich 
tracery  of  dark  blue!    Was   there   ever 

anything  as  beautiful  as  this  latest  work 

fSol 


THE  BLAZING  STAR 


THE  picture  shows  well  the 
heavy  sombre  character  of 
the  coverlet.  Observe  the  similarity 
between  this  and  the  ''  Simrise" 
design. 


A    BOOK    OF    HAND-WOVEN    COVERLETS 

of  her  hands?  It  is  the  wonder  of  the 
world  and  "World's  Wonder"  should 
be  its  name. 

"Lonely  Heart"  tells  a  story  of  a 
deserted  wife  or  a  maid  forlorn. 
"Flowers  of  Edinboro"  is  a  Scotch 
emigrant's  sigh  for  her  native  land,  and 
if  you  knew  nothing  of  the  origin  of 
these  mountain  people,  such  titles  as 
"Queen's  Patch,"  "King's  Flower," 
"Cuckoo's  Nest,"  "Penford  Chariot 
Wheels,"  and  "Flowers  of  Edinboro" 
would  tell  a  story  of  Scotch  and  English 
ancestry  quite  as  authentic  as  the  aris- 
tocratic surnames  borne  by  the  weavers 
themselves.  "Young  Lady's  Perplex- 
ity" suggests  a  maiden  hesitating  be- 
tween two  lovers.     "The  Forty-Niners" 


A    BOOK    OF    HAND-WOVEN    COVERLETS 

commemorates  the  discovery  of  gold  in 
California.  "Rose  of  Sharon,"  "Lily 
of  the  Valley/'  "Olive  Leaf,"  and  "Isle 
of  Patmos"  show  the  Biblical  knowl- 
edge of  the  mountaineer.  "The  Bride's 
Table"  is  a  rare  pattern  woven  near 
Athol,  Ky.  There  are  squares  repre- 
senting tables,  and  in  the  centre  of  each 
a  round  tufted  figure  which  is  the  bride's 
cake. 

"Youth  and  Beauty"  and  "Lasting 
Beauty"  are  names  that  tap  the  foun- 
tain of  tears.  There  are  some  things 
that  we  do  not  know  until  we  lose 
them,  nor  can  we  really  know  a  thing 
until  we  know  its  opposite.  If  you 
want  a  hymn  in  praise  of  youth  and 
beauty,  you  must  not  expect  it  of  the 

f82l 


A    BOOK    OF    HAND-WOVEN    COVERLETS 

young  and  the  beautiful.  Only  the  old 
know  what  youth  and  beauty  are,  and 
looking  at  the  faded  blue  of  Rachel 
Marran  Chambers'  coverlet  and  the 
simple  squares  of  the  other  Scandina- 
vian design,  I  see  two  women  wearied 
with  "care  and  sorrow  and  childbirth 
pain,"  withered,  toothless,  colorless, 
bending  over  the  loom  and  naming 
their  handiwork  in  memory  of  a  swift- 
winged  splendor  that  once  was  theirs 
and  that  will  never  be  theirs  again. 
"Soldier's  Return"  is  a  mother's  psalm 
of  rejoicing  over  a  son  saved  from  the 
perils  of  war  and  restored  to  the  safety 
of  home.  "Catch  Me  If  You  Can" 
paints  a  picture  of  a  coquette  with  fly- 
ing feet  and  flying  curls  looking  back 
[83] 


A    BOOK   OF    HAND-WOVEN    COVERLETS 

to  see  how  near  she  is  to  being  caught. 
"Young  Man*s  Fancy"  has  a  famiUar 
sound.  Where  have  we  read  those 
words  before.'*    Ah,  yes! 

"/n  the  spring  a  young  man's  fancy  lightly 
turns  to  thoughts  of  love." 

We  are  not  daring  enough  to  advance 
the  theory  that  "Locksley  Hall"  was 
read  in  the  mountains  where  we  find 
this  name;  but  let  us  suppose  that  it 
designates  a  pattern  of  English  origin, 
that  the  English  poet  in  his  childhood 
slept  under  a  coverlet  by  this  name. 
Perhaps,  as  his  fingers  traced  the  pat- 
tern, his  old  nurse  told  him  it  was 
called  "Young  Man's  Fancy,"  and  the 
phrase  lingering  in  his  mind  with  other 

childish  memories  was  caught  one  day 

[84] 


YOUTH  AND   BEAUTY 


A  MOUNTAIN  coverlet.  Woven 
by  Rachel  Marran  Chambers 
five  generations  ago.  Owned  by  Miss 
Elizabeth  Dangerfield  of  Lexington, 
Ky.y  to  whom  it  was  given  by  Flor- 
ence Strong,  Athol,  Ky.,  the  great- 
great-granddaughter  of  the  weaver. 


A    BOOK   OF    HAND-WOVEN    COVERLETS 

by  a  tide  of  poetic  inspiration  and  drifted 
into  the  poem  of  his  young  manhood, 
just  as  the  empty  shell  and  the  per- 
fect pearl  are  brought  to  shore  by  the 
same  ocean  tide.  Smile  if  you  will  at 
this  fantastic  theory;  but  "Young  Man's 
Fancy"  will  always  seem  to  me  a  link 
between  the  English  poet  who  wrote 
"Locksley  Hall"  and  the  Anglo-Saxon 
woman  who  spins  and  weaves  in  the 
mountains  of  Kentucky.  Every  cov- 
erlet-lover may  theorize  in  perfect  free- 
dom, as  I  do,  for  the  field  is  all  our 
own  and  no  philologist  can  question  the 
correctness  of  our  conclusions. 

The    design    called    "Owsley    Forks" 
is  meant  to  show  the  current  of  a  creek 

flowing    by    the    home    of   a    mountain 

[85] 


A    BOOK    OF    HAND-WOVEN    COVERLETS 

weaver  in  Kentucky.  She  made  the 
creek  the  theme  of  her  weaving,  as 
Tennyson  made  a  brook  the  theme  of 
his  poem;  and  who  shall  say  she  is  not 
soul-kin  to  the  English  poet  or  to  any 
artist  in  Japan  who  looks  with  wor- 
shipful eyes  toward  Fujiyama  and  then 
takes  up  his  brush  to  paint  its  snow- 
clad  beauty? 

*'Work  Complete"  sounds  a  note  of 
triumph.  I  see  the  weaver  gazing  at 
her  web  as  you  gaze  at  your  water- 
color  painting,  your  delicate  embroid- 
ery or  your  stamped  leather.  In  the 
curves  of  that  flower-like  design  there 
is  the  satisfactory  beauty  of  work  that 
lasts.     To  the  end  of  her  life  she  must 

do  work  that  each  day  will  undo,  but 

[86] 


A    BOOK    OF    HAND-WOVEN    COVERLETS 

here  is  one  completed  task  never  to 
be  done  again,  and  she  feels  the  large 
content  that  filled  the  soul  of  Milton 
when  he  wrote  the  last  lines  of  "Para- 
dise Lost." 

"Petersburg  Beauty"  suggests  at 
once  a  pretty  Virginia  girl,  but  the  name 
was  more  probably  given  in  honor  of 
some  German  maiden  in  the  town  of 
Petersburg,  Somerset  County,  Pennsyl- 
vania, for  here  in  the  old  days  lived 
many  skilled  weavers  whose  names  we 
read  to-day  in  the  corners  of  their 
double-woven  coverlets. 

"Battle    of    Richmond"    will    puzzle 

the   reader  who  knows   that   there  was 

no  battle  of  that  name  during  the  Civil 

War,    though    several    battles    occurred 

[87] 


A    BOOK    OF    HAND-WOVEN    COVERLETS 

near  the  city.  But  in  the  annals  of  the 
Revolutionary  War  we  find  a  story  of 
the  capture  and  burning  of  Richmond 
by  Cornwallis  assisted  by  Benedict 
Arnold,  and  the  name  doubtless  com- 
memorates this  event.  How  strangely 
life  links  the  small  and  the  great,  when 
the  pattern  of  an  old  bed-covering  can 
recall  one  of  the  battles  in  a  great  war! 
The  "Whig  Rose"  is  sometimes 
classed  as  an  English  pattern,  but  to 
my  mind  it  is  a  modification  of  a 
Scandinavian  pattern  which  goes  by 
various  names  —  "Lover's  Knot"  in 
Somerset  County,  Pennsylvania,  and 
"Flower  Pot"  and  "Philadelphia  Pave- 
ment" in  New  York.  Every  cover- 
let of  this  pattern  that  I  have  ever  seen 
[88] 


THE  WHIG  ROSE 


PATTERN  taken  fro7n  coverlet 
woven  fifty  years  ago  near 
Paris,  Tenn.  Owned  by  Mrs.  T.  H. 
Bunch  of  Memphis,  Tenn.  The 
design  is  a  modification  of  the 
Scandinavian  "Lover's  Knot.'' 
"Wheel  of  Fortune"  and  "Sim, 
Moon  and  Stars"  closely  resemble 
"Whig  Rose." 


A    BOOK   OF    HAND-WOVEN    COVERLETS 

was  woven  in  Tennessee  and  its  name 
probably   commemorates   the   formation 
of  the  Whig  party  in  Andrew  Jackson's 
administration.     The  compUcated  nature 
of  "Missouri  Trouble"  and  "Tennessee 
Trouble"  might  well   be  the  reason  for 
these  names,  but  the  former  is  a  reference 
to   the   stormy   days   of   1850,   and    the 
East  Tennessee  weavers  say  that  "  Ten- 
nessee    Trouble"     commemorates     the 
trouble    that    Tennessee    had    with    the 
Indians  at  the  beginning  of  the  nineteenth 
century.     In    some    parts    of    the    state 
the   pattern   is  called   "Job's  Trouble," 
and    if    Job    should    ever    become    ac- 
quainted  with   its   intricacies   and   diffi- 
culties  he   would   give    thanks    to    God 
for    having    been    spared    this    trouble. 
[89] 


A    BOOK    OF    HAND-WOVEN    COVERLETS 

The  "Sea  Star"  pattern  probably  origi- 
nated in  a  seaport  town,  for  the  four- 
cornered  figure  suggests  the  starfish, 
but  it  wandered  down  into  Tennessee 
and  fell  into  the  hands  of  a  religious 
enthusiast,  who  saw  things  in  visions 
as  did  John,  and  there  it  became  "Isle 
of  Patmos." 

To  read  the  political  names  is  like 
viewing  a  pageant  that  shows  the 
whole  course  of  American  history  with 
now  and  then  a  glimpse  of  European 
affairs.  Each  name  is  a  tableau.  You 
see  the  wigwam  of  the  Indian  and 
the  cabin  of  the  settler;  you  hear  the 
shrieks  of  women  and  children  and  the 
march    of    contending    armies;    stately 

figures   pass  before   you,  diplomat,  war- 

[90] 


A    BOOK    OF    HAND-WOVEN    COVERLETS 

rior,  colonial  dame,  statesman  and  phi- 
losopher; w^T  succeeds  war,  political 
parties  are  formed,  and  as  you  ponder 
each  historical  picture  you  see  in  the 
background  a  woman  spinning  and 
weaving.  Not  hers  to  write  odes  and 
epics  or  to  measure  her  powers  with 
man's  in  affairs  of  state.  But  while  her 
toil-worn  hands  are  busy  with  the  work 
of  home-making,  her  thoughts  are  divided 
between  her  home  and  her  country,  and 
these  coverlet  names  are  pathetic  evi- 
dence that  the  fire  of  patriotism  burned 
in  her  heart  as  warmly  as  in  the  heart 
of  her  husband  or  her  son. 

"What    can    you    see    in    these    old 
coverlets.?"  ask  my  friends,  half-wonder- 
ingly,  half-con  temp  tuously. 
[91] 


A    BOOK    OF    HAND-WOVEN    COVERLETS 

What  can  I  not  see?  I  see  poetry, 
romance,  religion,  sociology,  philology, 
politics,  and  history,  and  if  any  Juliet 
asks  me  "What's  in  a  name?"  I  answer: 
"All  that's  in  human  lije^ 

To  find  the  design  corresponding  to 
a  name  or  the  name  corresponding  to 
a  design  requires  the  brain  and  skill 
of  a  detective.  Sometimes  the  name 
serves  for  the  design  of  a  coverlet  and 
the  design  of  a  piece  of  piece-work  quilt. 
The  lady  who  purchased  for  Miss  Ken- 
yon  her  beautiful  "Lover's  Knot"  says 
it  was  called  "Philadelphia  Pavement," 
and  I  have  seen  a  piece  quilt  of  purple 
and  white  calico  with  that  name.  "Irish 
Chain,"  "Log  Cabin,"  "Sugar  Loaf," 
and  many  others  belong  to  the  nomen- 
[92] 


TENNESSEE    TROUBLE 


OWNED  by  Mrs.  Benjamin  F. 
Proctor^  Bowling  Green,  Ky. 
Woven  by  slave  labor  about  sixty 
years  ago  in  Warren  Cou7ity,  Ky. 


A    BOOK   OF    HAND-WOVEN    COVERLETS 

clature  of  both  coverlets  and  quilts.  It 
is  part  of  the  charm  of  names  that  every 
one  likes  to  christen  something,  whether 
it  be  a  horse  or  a  book,  a  battle-ship, 
or  a  child,  and  we  find  the  coverlet 
weavers  varying  designs  and  changing 
names  at  will.  Thus,  some  one  sim- 
plified the  "Sugar  Loaf"  design  and 
re-named  it  "Youth  and  Beauty."  ^ 
Sometimes  one  name  does  duty  for  two 
or  three  dissimilar  designs,  and  a  design 

1  In  many  instances  I  have  designated  the 
state  where  a  name  is  found,  but  this  is  seldom 
any  clue  to  the  origin  of  the  name.  I  first  found 
"  Youth  and  Beauty  "  in  Kentucky.  A  year  later 
I  found  it  in  Kingston,  R.  I.  Whether  it  origi- 
nated in  Kentucky  and  wandered  off  to  Rhode 
Island  or  vice  versa  no  one  knows.  The  few 
dates  given  are  taken  from  old  drafts,  but  they 
indicate  only  the  age  of  the  draft,  not  the  age  of 
the  pattern  itself. 

[93] 


A    BOOK    OF    HAND-WOVEN    COVERLETS 

may  have  one  name  in  North  Carolina, 
another  in  Kentucky,  another  in  Ten- 
nessee, and  still  another  in  Virginia ,  as 
if  it  were  a  criminal  fleeing  from  justice. 
A  friend  whose  coverlet  knowledge  is 
both  wide  and  deep  once  told  me  that 
*' Governor's  Garden"  was  "Gover- 
nor's Garden"  always  and  everywhere. 
So  I  took  my  pen  and  wrote: 

"In  this  bewildering  masquerade 
there  is  one  steadfast  pattern. 
Whether  you  find  'Governor's  Garden' 
in  Massachusetts  or  Kentucky,  in  Maine 
or  Ohio,  it  is  always  'Governor's  Gar- 
den,' a  stately  aristocrat  with  whose 
name  no  one  dares  take  liberties."  But 
a  few  weeks  later  I  learned  from  some 
East  Tennessee  weavers  that  "Gov- 
[94] 


A    BOOK    OF    HAND-WOVEN    COVERLETS 

ernor's  Garden"  is  also  called  "Leop- 
ard Spots"  or  "The  Spotted  Leopard," 
and  later  still  I  found  my  "stately 
aristocrat"  known  in  New  York  as 
"Rocky  Mountain  Cucumber,"  the  most 
grotesque  and  plebeian  of  all  the  gro- 
tesque and  plebeian  names! 

Writing  on  this  particular  branch  of 
my  subject  is  like  walking  on  shifting 
sands.  When  I  write  a  name  under 
a  design  it  is  with  a  hesitating  pen,  for 
I  know  that  any  statement  as  to  nomen- 
clature will  have  to  be  added  to  or 
subtracted  from  or  perhaps  completely 
erased.  Usually  investigation  results  in 
certainty  and  clear  knowledge,  but  the 
more  you  investigate  this  subject  the 
deeper  grows  your  bewilderment  and 
[95] 


A    BOOK    OF    HAND-WOVEN    COVERLETS 

the  less  certainty  do  you  feel  about  the 
correctness  of  your  naming.  For  tw^o 
years  I  knew  one  pattern  as  "Kentucky 
Snowballs."  Then  I  learned  that  it 
should  be  "Kentucky  Snowflakes." 
Later  on  I  discovered  it  in  East  Ten- 
nessee under  the  name  of  "Hail  Storm," 
and  somewhere  else  it  is  "Colonel  Jack- 
son's Army"  —  the  small  white  spots 
resembling  the  tents  of  an  army  en- 
camped on  a  plain  —  and  yet  again  it 
is  "Alabama  Squares,"  and  next  week 
or  a  week  after  I  may  learn  a  fresh 
name.  I  have  names  without  patterns 
and  patterns  without  names,  and  both 
distress  me,  for  they  are  like  souls  with- 
out   bodies    and    bodies    without    souls. 

I  feel  great  pride  at  the  thought  that 
[96] 


LADIES'    DELIGHT 


A  COMBINATION  of  ''Win- 
dow Sash''  and  ''Double 
Bow  Knot."  In  the  Kentucky 
mountains  it  is  sometimes  called 
"Gentleman's  Fancy."  The  cov- 
erlet was  woven  about  sixty  years 
ago  near  Franklin,  Ky.  Owned  by 
Mrs.  M.  A.  Cooke,  Bowling  Green, 
Ky.     Colors,  dark  blue  and  white. 


A    BOOK    OF    HAND-WOVEN    COVERLETS 

perhaps  no  one  in  the  world  has  as 
many  coverlet  names  as  I  have;  but, 
dear  as  these  are  to  me,  many  of  them 
only  increase  the  sum  of  life's  disap- 
pointments. There  are  so  many  things 
I  would  like  to  see  and  never  shall  see: 
the  heather  purpling  on  the  moors  of 
Scotland,  sunshine  on  the  bay  of  Naples, 
the  Coliseum  by  moonlight,  violets 
blooming  over  the  grave  of  Keats,  and 
to  these  I  must  add  "Cuckoo's  Nest," 
"Fading  Leaf,"  "Snowball  and  Dew- 
drop,"  and  a  hundred  other  missing 
designs  whose  names  "haunt  my 
dreams"  as  the  odors  from  those  "lilies 
of  eternal  peace"  haunted  the  dreams 
of  Galahad. 

[97] 


V 

COVERLET   DESIGNS 


COVERLET   DESIGNS 


'In  my  mind's  eye,  Horatio.'* 

HENCE  do  they  come, 
these  myriad  designs 
and  their  fantastic 
names  ? 

From  the  same 
ethereal  region  where  Shakespeare  met 
Miranda  and  Rosalind,  where  Prax- 
iteles first  saw  his  statues  and  Shelley 
heard  his  "Hymn  to  the  Skylark." 
The  mountain  woman,  like  the  Sensi- 
tive Plant, 
"...  desires  what  she  has  not,  the  beautiful." 

There    are    no    paintings   on    her   walls, 

[  loi  ] 


A    BOOK    OF    HAND-WOVEN    COVERLETS 

no  bric-a-brac  on  her  mantel-shelf,  but 
over  her  shine  the  same  moon  and 
stars  that  woke  dreams  in  the  soul  of 
Homer;  at  her  feet  bloom  the  flowers 
that  the  poets  loved,  and  in  her  brain  is 
the  creative  imagination  that  is  the  source 
of  all  art;  so,  though  palette,  chisel, 
brush,  and  the  lore  of  books  be  with- 
held from  her,  the  love  of  beauty,  the 
desire  to  create  beauty,  will  have  its 
way,  and  with  wheel  and  distaff^,  loom 
and  dye-pot,  she  does  an  artist's  work. 

Certain  folk-stories  and  myths  are 
common  to  all  literature,  and  certain 
forms  of  beauty  are  common  to  all  art. 
We  find  them  drifting  from  one  coun- 
try   to    another,    seeking  expression    in 

clay   or    marble   or   in   woven    threads. 

[102] 


DOUBLE  MUSCADINE  HULLS 


A  COMPOSITE  pattern  show- 
ing features  of  "  Weaver  s 
Choice"  and  the  "Double  Bow 
Knot"  or  "Hickory  Leaf"  designs. 
Woven  in  Tishomingo  County,  Miss. 
Owned  by  the  writer,  to  zuhom  it  was 
given  by  William  Wade. 


A    BOOK    OF    HAND-WOVEN    COVERLETS 

The  swastika  of  the  Hindoo  race  is  also 
a  Christian  symbol  and  is  found  in  the 
Roman  catacombs  of  the  fourth  cen- 
tury, in  Iceland  in  the  ninth  century, 
all  over  Asia  and  Europe,  on  old  Greek 
coins,  on  Etruscan  vases,  on  the  pot- 
tery of  the  Pueblo  Indian,  on  the  Navajo 
blanket,  and  in  the  decorative  work  of 
the  Hindoo.  In  the  ruins  of  Yucatan 
we  see  sculptured  designs  similar  to 
the  scrolls  and  rectilinear  frets  used  by 
the  Greeks  and  Romans,  and  if  you 
place  side  by  side  the  designs  used  by 
the  Navajo  Indian  and  the  Scandina- 
vian weaver,  you  would  say  that  artists 
of  the  same  blood  must  have  created 
them.  The  Scandinavian  weaver  uses 
the  straight  lines  that  are  the  special 
[103] 


A    BOOK    OF    HAND-WOVEN    COVERLETS 

mark  of  Navajo  work.  The  zigzag  de- 
sign that  the  Navajo  uses  to  represent 
lightning  is  found  in  the  textile  work 
of  Norway  and  Sweden,  and  some  old 
coverlet  woven  in  New  England  or  the 
mountains  of  the  southern  states  may 
show  a  pattern  whose  lines  will  lead  us 
back  to  the  days  of  the  Vikings. 

Over  a  sofa  in  my  parlor  hangs  a 
x" Double  Muscadine  Hulls"  in  brown 
and  ecru.  Every  one  who  sees  it  says, 
"That  is  oriental."  It  resembles  Jap- 
anese matting,  but  is  closer  kin  to  a 
piece  of  Samoan  tapa  cloth  which  hangs 
over  the  landing  of  my  stairway.  Both 
are  brown,  both  are  divided  into  squares, 
and  both  show  the  leafy  design  known  as 

*'Bow  Knot."     The  gorgeous  beauty  of 

[  104] 


A    BOOK    OF    HAND-WOVEN    COVERLETS 

"Thistles  and  Lilies"  is  Chinese  in  effect, 
and  the  "Bird  of  Paradise"  is  like  a 
piece  of  old  English  tapestry. 

One  day  a  photograph  of  "Bona- 
parte's March"  came  to  me.  As  I 
studied  it  I  happened  to  look  down  and 
found  "Bonaparte's  March"  in  the  rug 
under  my  feet.  The  flower-like  "Snow- 
ball" and  the  figure  that  the  mountain 
woman  calls  "Catalpa  Flower"  also 
occur  in  oriental  rugs,  and  a  Navajo 
squaw  might  have  woven  Elizabeth 
Dean's  blue  and  white  coverlet. 
"^The  "Chariot  Wheel,"  a  circle  with 
two  diameters  crossing  each  other  at 
right  angles,  is  one  of  the  oldest  designs. 
In  the  pictographs  of  the  Moqui  Indians 
in  Arizona  the  symbol  for  the  word 
[105] 


A    BOOK    OF    HAND-WOVEN    COVERLETS 

"star"  is  the  hub  and  spokes  of  the 
Chariot  Wheel,  thus :  \^  .  The  wheel 
itself,  like  the  swastika,  is  almost  omni- 
present. It  is  the  letter  theta  of  the  Greek 
alphabet,  it  is  found  in  the  insignia  of 
the  Roman  legions,  in  the  Aramean  alpha- 
bet, in  the  pictographs  and  syllabary  of 
the  Cherokee  Indians  and  the  ancient 
Mexicans,  in  the  Codex  Cortesianus,  an 
old  Maya  manuscript,  and  on  the  pottery 
of  the  Mound  Builders. ^  Thus  does 
one  touch  of  art,  like  "one  touch  of 
nature,"  make  "the  whole  world  kin." 

Once  when  I  was  a  child  of  eleven 
years,  somebody  placed  a  kaleidoscope 
in  my  hand  and  told  me  to  look  through 

^  In  the  Mexican  pictographs  it  represents  a 
bale  of  blankets  and  the  diameters  are  the  ropes 
that  tie  the  bale. 

f  106I 


SINGLE   CHARIOT   WHEELS 


DESIGN  taken  from  a  cover- 
let woven  in  Madison  County^ 
Ky.  Part  of  the  William  Wade 
Collection. 


A    BOOK    OF    HAND-WOVEN    COVERLETS 

it.  Memory  has  loosed  her  grasp  on 
hundreds  of  childish  days,  but  this  one 
she  still  holds  fast  and  surrounds  with 
the  halo  of  enchantment.  All  day  I 
sat  gazing  through  the  little  tube  into 
a  world  of  form  and  color  that  delighted 
my  eye  as  chords  of  music  delight  my 
ear,  and  the  same  witchery  seizes  and 
holds  me  when  I  look  long  at  some  of 
these  coverlets.  You  know  how  one 
slight  motion  of  the  kaleidoscope  dis- 
places the  pieces  of  colored  glass,  dis- 
solving the  pattern  at  which  you  were 
gazing  and  replacing  it  with  another  of 
equal  beauty.  So  it  is  with  these  de- 
signs. I  have  only  to  throw  an  old 
coverlet    over    a    chair,    sit    down    and 

fix  my  eyes  on  it  and  behold!  I  am  a 

[107] 


A    BOOK    OF    HAND-WOVEN    COVERLETS 

child    and   the   coverlet  is   my  kaleido- 
scope. 

I  look  at  "Single  Chariot  Wheels" 
and  see  first  the  circular  figures  that 
represent  wheels.  Then  I  catch  sight 
of  a  straight  line;  I  follow  it  up;  in- 
stantly the  Chariot  Wheels  disappear 
and  I  see  only  diagonal  lines  meeting, 
crossing,  and  forming  a  net-work  of  beau- 
tiful squares,  four  small  squares  making 
a  large  square  as  in  patchwork.  I  study 
"The  Cross,"  and  at  first  it  seems  only 
a  collection  of  squares,  with  the  sun- 
burst pattern  in  some  of  them,  then 
the  cross  appears,  and  longer  study 
reveals  the  beautiful  octagonal  figure 
found  in  "Lover's  Knot."     This  is  very 

elusive.     I  find  it,  then  lose  it,  and   find 

[108I 


A    BOOK   OF    HAND-WOVEN    COVERLETS 

it  again  only  to  have  it  disappear  be- 
fore the  "  Cross  "  or  the  "  Sunrise."  Place 
the  "Cross"  by  the  side  of  "Snail 
Trail"  and  they  seem  entirely  different; 
but  make  an  inclined  plane  of  the  page 
on  which  "The  Cross"  is  found,  and 
look  diagonally  from  the  lower  left-hand 
corner  to  the  upper  right-hand  corner 
and  presto!  you  have  the  winding  lines 
of  "Snail  Trail."  To  look  at  "Double 
Muscadine  Hulls"  is  like  walking  in  a 
maze  where  every  path  leads  to  some- 
thing beautiful.  I  thread  my  way  through 
"Governor's  Garden,"  finding  grav- 
elled walks  edged  with  box,  grassy  ter- 
races, and  beds  of  pinks,  and  clumps  of 
old-fashioned  roses.    "  Missouri  Trouble  " 

is  as  beautiful  as  a  stained  glass  window, 

[  109 1 


A    BOOK    OF    HAND-WOVEN    COVERLETS 

and  "Sunrise  on  the  Walls  of  Troy"  is  a 
Greek  poem  of  form  and  color. 

The  quincunx,  five  squares  or  figures, 
one  in  the  centre  and  one  at  each  cor- 
ner, is  a  frequent  feature.  "Catalpa 
Flower"  has  this  quincuncial  arrange- 
ment in  the  dark  groundwork,  making 
a  background  for  the  white  flowers  and 
the  white  bars  connecting  them.  If 
these  bars  were  woven  in  dark  thread 
instead  of  white,  the  appropriateness  of 
the  name  would  be  indisputable,  for  the 
four  "flowers"  would  appear  just  as  in 
"Missouri  Trouble."  This  bar  with  a 
flower-like  figure  at  each  end  often  ac- 
companies the  "Chariot  Wheel."  You 
find  it  in  "Shells  of  Ocean"  slightly 
pointed,  in  "Ocean  Wave"  long  and  slen- 

[IIO] 


THE  CROSS 


WOVEN  m  Union  County, 
Tenn.  Owing  to  the  colors 
of  this  coverlet,  dark  hrown  and 
ecru,  it  does  not  photograph  well, 
but  the  picture  shows  the  beauty  of 
the  design. 


'^^■^^r^vw}y^^f^Y^^>W^'^%\ 


I  ^^^Wf^^yf^^ijir^v^i 


A    BOOK    OF    HAND-WOVEN    COVERLETS 

der,  in  "Single  Chariot  Wheels"  short 
and  broad,  and  in  "Double  Chariot 
Wheels"  it  separates  the  four  wheels, 
forming  a  beautiful  cross  very  much 
like  the  cross  trefle  of  heraldry.  The 
Tennessee  design  called  "The  Cross" 
shows  the  couped  cross  of  heraldry, 
and  the  cross  decussata  or  St.  Andrew's 
cross  occurs  in  "Tennessee  Trouble," 
"Missouri  Trouble,"  "Irish  Chain," 
and  "Lily  of  the  Valley."  It  is  prob- 
able that  designs  showing  heraldic  de- 
vices are  of  English  origin.  "Double 
Chariot  Wheels"  undoubtedly  is,  for 
it  is  also  called  "Church  Windows" 
from  its  resemblance  to  a  rose  window 
in  an  English  cathedral.     But  whoever 

tries  to  trace  any  heraldic  design  to  its 
[III] 


A    BOOK    OF    HAND-WOVEN    COVERLETS 

ultimate  source  will  find  himself  on  a 
long  journey  whose  end  lies  in  pre- 
historic darkness.  Oriental  nations,  the 
Chinese  especially,  placed  certain  sym- 
bolic designs  on  their  shields  when  they 
went  to  war,  believing  that  these  were 
charms  to  avert  the  weapons  of  the 
enemy.  The  Greeks  and  Romans  and 
later  the  Normans  adopted  the  same 
custom.  In  the  days  of  chivalry  the 
device  on  a  knight's  armor  became  the 
symbol  of  his  family;  when  one  fam- 
ily intermarried  with  another  the  two 
devices  were  blended,  and  this  was  the 
origin  of  "armorial  bearings"  and  the 
science  of  heraldry.  Thus  my  thread- 
bare '*  Chariot  Wheel"  coverlet  in 
black,  white,  and  dull  red,  woven  half 

[112] 


A    BOOK    OF    HAND-WOVEN    COVERLETS 

a  century  ago  by  an  illiterate  country- 
woman, speaks  to  me  of  strange  things 
in  strange  lands;  of  armed  warriors  from 
Thrace  and  the  Palatine,  of  crusaders 
bound  for  the  Holy  Land,  of  cathedrals 
where  the  light  falls  dim  through  win- 
dows of  wonderful  colored  glass,  and 
of  kings  in  gilded  chariots  going  through 
London  town  to  the  place  of  coro- 
nation. 

Some  of  the  designs  are  modern  and 
purely  American.  "Federal  City,"  for 
instance,  was  an  attempt  to  represent 
the  squares  and  avenues  of  the  national 
capital.  Sometimes  an  old  design  is 
slightly  modified  and  re-named.  "Lee's 
Surrender"  is  said  to  be  a  modifica- 
tion of  the  older  design,  "Braddock's 
[113] 


A    BOOK   OF    HAND-WOVEN    COVERLETS 

Defeat,"  and  the  "Double  Bow  Knot"  is 
an  evolution  of  the  ancient  ** Sunrise" 
design  so  often  seen  in  the  oldest  cover- 
lets. I  wish  I  knew  the  name  of  the 
weaver  who  had  originality  enough  to 
think  of  making  the  sun-rays  converge 
at  both  points,  thus  forming  the  beau- 
tiful leafy  pattern  that  has  so  many 
names.  It  is  curious  to  observe  how 
a  slight  variation  like  this  will  com- 
pletely disguise  a  pattern,  and  merely 
enlarging  or  diminishing  a  pattern  will 
sometimes  conceal  its  identity.  I  looked 
at  "Sugar  Loaf"  and  "Doors  and  Win- 
dows" many  times  before  I  saw  that 
they  were  the  same,  only  woven  on  a 
different  scale. 

It    is    impossible    to    speak    of   these 
[114] 


A    BOOK    OF    HAND-WOVEN    COVERLETS 

coverlet  patterns  except  in  the  terms  of 

art.     Often  I  find  myself  thinking  and 

writing  as   if  weaving  and   music  were 

sister  arts.     A  draft  is  like  a  long  bar 

of  music  and  the  figures  or  marks  on  it 

are   the   notes.     When   I   see  a   weaver 

at  his  loom  I  think  of  an  organist  seated 

before  a  great  organ,  and   the   treadles 

of   the    loom    are    like    the    pedals    and 

stops    of    the    musical     instrument.     I 

look  at  the  threads  and  the  loom  seems 

a  stringed  instrument,  too  huge  for  the 

hand  of  man,  but  made  to  be  played  on 

by  every  wind  of  heaven;  and  whenever 

I   begin   to   study  a   new   coverlet   pat- 

* 
tern,  Milton's  lines  come  to  me: 

"  Untwisting  all  the  chains  thai  tie 
The  hidden  soul  of  harmony" 

[115] 


A    BOOK   OF    HAND-WOVEN    COVERLETS 

We  think  with  wonder  and  admira- 
tion of  the  musician  who  carries  in  his 
brain  a  repertory  of  harmonies  that 
his  fingers  express  on  the  strings  of  his 
chosen  instrument.  But  the  same 
wonder  and  admiration  that  I  would 
feel  in  the  presence  of  Chaminade  or 
Paderewski  comes  over  me  when  I 
stand  in  the  presence  of  a  mountain 
weaver.  Her  dress  may  be  unfashion- 
able, her  language  plain  and  ungram- 
matical,  but  she  is  mistress  of  an  art 
so  old  that  history  can  tell  us  nothing 
of  its  beginning;  her  brain  holds  the 
complexities  of  ten,  twenty,  thirty,  or 
forty  harmonies  of  form  and  color,  and 
her  work  endures  because  it  bears   the 

marks     of     that     noble     craftsmanship 
[ii6] 


A  MONROE  COUNTY  COVERLET 


AN  original  design  woven  about 
sixty  years  ago  in  Mon- 
roe County^  Ky.,  by  Mrs.  Irene 
Celsor.  A  magnifying  glass  is 
needed  to  show  the  beauty  of  the 
pattern.  Colors,  black,  white,  and 
pinkish  heliotrope. 


L'«- 

V*  >[*     • 

V 

:V 

''t-Mit  > 

'f 

'MB  Mitt 

% 

•  miwt 

V 

i*  t  iii,tj%« 
■ » tit'  ■  •  ■ 


A    BOOK    OF    HAND-WOVEN    COVERLETS 

which  WiUiam  Morris  defined  as  *' thor- 
oughly good  workmanship  which  results 
from  a  positive  interest  and  satisfaction 
in  the  work." 

**I  come  of  a  weaving  family/'  said 
a  Monroe  County  woman  to  me,  as  she 
displayed  some  coverlets  of  highly  origi- 
nal designs  and  colors.  The  talent  for 
weaving  "runs"  in  families  and  mani- 
fests itself  in  varying  degrees.  Some 
weavers  must  have  a  draft  to  guide 
them;  they  are  like  musicians  who  play 
only  by  note.  Others  can  look  at  a 
coverlet  or  a  picture  of  one,  then  write 
a  draft  and  weave  it  with  perfect  accu- 
racy; they  are  like  musicians  who  play 
by  ear.  Others  require  neither  cover- 
let nor  picture  to  guide  them;  they  make 
[117] 


A    BOOK   OF   HAND-WOVEN    COVERLETS 

their  own  drafts,  following  an  inner 
vision  after  the  manner  of  the  Navajo 
artist,  and  they  are  the  original  com- 
posers, the  Mozarts  and  Beethovens 
of  textile  art.  Then,  too,  there  are 
the  less  gifted  ones  whose  originality 
goes  no  farther  than  making  slight  vari- 
ations in  some  well-known  pattern  or 
combining  two  patterns. 

All  musical  harmonies  are  constructed 
on  a  basis  of  seven  primary  notes,  and 
a  like  simplicity  underlies  the  har- 
monies of  form  and  color  found  in 
coverlets.  At  first  the  patterns  seem 
bewilderingly  complex  and  different,  but 
after  much  gazing  and  comparing,  the 
coverlet  student  will   find   the  different 

units,   the  pine  burr,   the  sea  star,   the 

[ii8] 


A    BOOK    OF    HAND-WOVEN    COVERLETS 

catalpa  flower,  the  leaf,  the  chariot 
wheel,  the  king's  flower,  the  dogwood 
blossom  or  snowball,  the  square,  the 
circle,  the  diamond,  and  when  a  new 
design  is  brought  before  him  he  ana- 
lyzes it  at  a  glance  and  determines  its 
relation  to  other  designs.  The  related  de- 
signs are  represented  in  this  book  so  that 
the  reader  may  see  the  "like  in  like"  and 
"like  in  difference"  and  observe  how  one 
design  is  evolved  from  another. 
\  The  Navajo  weaver  originates  his 
own  designs  and  never  weaves  the 
same  design  twice.  The  mountain 
woman,  on  the  other  hand,  inherits 
her  patterns.  In  the  old  days  every 
mother   taught  her   daughter   to  weave 

and  every  family  had  its  own  particular 

[119] 


A    BOOK    OF    HAND-WOVEN    COVERLETS 

patterns;  but  lest  the  precious  knowl- 
edge might  be  lost,  the  patterns  were 
indicated  by  marks  and  figures  on  paper, 
and  these  "drafts,"  as  the  weavers  call 
them,  passed  from  hand  to  hand  as 
long  as  the  paper  lasted.  Eleven 
"drafts"  lie  before  me  and  I  wish  each 
reader  could  see  the  slender  rolls  of 
paper  and  cloths  as  I  see  them.  I 
handle  them  reverently  as  I  would 
handle  a  poet's  manuscript,  for  is  not 
each  the  record  of  a  woman's  dream  of 
art.?  Cloth  and  paper  alike  are  brown 
with  age  and  the  paper  is  brittle  as  birch 
bark.  One  bears  a  date  which  shows 
it  to  be  fifty-eight  years  old;  another 
must   be   at   least   twenty   years   older, 

for    the   paper   falls   into   fragments   as 
[120] 


OLD    DRAFTS    USED    IN    THE 
KENTUCKY   MOUNTAINS 


.  y  .1— 


.   r_..Jm_^ 


III  i   ILL.        I  III  I  "I  I  "I '—Ml 


I 


i 


N 


,mtnii   inmii 

i 


///    I  //  imi  II 


lum 


r^ffit.afe:^E^z^L_ 


i^HHifl     VlfllfH' 


»<!/;>*-,  u  n-ii  u  imt""  ■  *v* 


//        //   •     /V 


A    BOOK    OF    HAND-WOVEN    COVERLETS 

you  unroll  it.  Old  letters  were  cut 
into  strips  an  inch  and  a  half  or  two 
inches  wide.  The  strips  were  sewed 
together  with  coarse  homespun  thread, 
one  is  pinned  with  a  clumsy  old  pin, 
and  as  the  paper  began  to  wear  out  it 
was  sewed  on  a  strip  of  homespun  cloth. 
On  one  side  of  the  paper  a  long  dead 
mountaineer  says: 

"My  dere  brother  I  take  my  pen  in 
hand  to  tell  you  that  I  am  well  and 
hope  you  have  the  same  blessing  of 
health."  On  the  other  side  the  brother's 
wife  has  traced  a  "draft"  called  "the 
ginny-fowle."  The  handwriting  on  one 
of  the  drafts  is  that  of  an  educated  per- 
son, and  this  cabalistic  direction  is  writ- 
ten on  one:  "Five  threads  in  each  split 

[121] 


A    BOOK    OF    HAND-WOVEN    COVERLETS 

as  fare  as  the  fives  in  draft.'*  With 
such  slender  memoranda  as  these  old 
slips  of  paper  it  is  a  marvel  that  more 
patterns  have  not  become  obsolete,  and 
often  a  long  search  has  to  be  made  for 
a  wise  old  woman  who  can  weave  a 
rare  pattern  and  teach  the  art  to  the 
younger  weavers. 

There  are  at  least  six  different  methods 
f  of  writing  drafts  and  the  method  often 
shows  the  nationality  of  the  weavers.  All 
the  drafts  found  about  Berea  are  written 
in  the  English  method,  another  proof 
that  the  mountaineer  is  of  Anglo-Saxon 
blood.  Drafts  written  according  to  the 
Scotch  method  point,  of  course,  to  a 
Scotch  or  Scotch-Irish  ancestry. 

The  designer's  art  will  never  go  be- 

[122] 


A    BOOK   OF    HAND-WOVEN    COVERLETS 

yond  the  beauty  of  these  old  patterns. 
The  revival  of  the  handcrafts  restores 
to  them  their  former  value,  and  who- 
ever rescues  one  design  from  destruc- 
tion renders  a  service  to  textile  art. 
How  many  designs  there  were  in  our 
grandmother's  day  we  shall  never  know, 
and  my  list  of  names  is  no  index  to  their 
number,  since  each  pattern  has  more 
than  one  name.  Many  are  already  lost 
beyond  recovery  and  more  will  be  lost, 
year  by  year,  as  the  drafts  are  de- 
stroyed and  the  coverlets  fall  into 
tatters.  What  beautiful  designs  have 
I  seen  on  ragged,  dirty  fragments  of  cov- 
erlets, and  how  often  have  I  listened 
trustingly    to    the    farmer    as    he    says 

cheerfully : 

[123] 


A    BOOK   OF    HAND-WOVEN    COVERLETS 

*'Yes,  ma'am,  I'll  bring  it  to  you  jest 
as  soon  as  I  sell  my  terbacker." 

"Please,  please,  don't  forget,"  I  plead, 
"I  only  want  to  get  a  photograph  of  it." 

He  repeats  his  promise,  goes  his  way, 
and  I  never  see  that  scrap  of  a  coverlet 
again.  Thus  have  I  lost  a  wonder- 
ful "Magnolia  Bloom,"  a  composite  pat- 
tern resembling  "Weaver's  Choice"  and 
"Forty-Nine  Snowballs,"  and  another 
of  Scandinavian  origin,  whose  name  I 
did  not  know,  and  whose  like  I  prob- 
ably shall  never  look  upon  again.  These 
three  and  countless  others  are  lying  in 
barn  lofts  or  dusty  garrets,  and  as  ill 
usage  destroys  the  last  shred  of  each, 
a  form  of  beauty  perishes  and  the  world 

is  poorer  evermore. 

[124] 


FORTY-NINE   SNOWBALLS 


A   "RESTORED"     coverlet, 
owned  by  the  author. 


•%      IW" 


»  ^^i^^^^'  ^* 


«     ■* 


W09f 

WW 


»    t 


I 


.,V.i 


•     I 

c     ■ 


s;__;i 


IS,     &A     ffar 


A    BOOK    OF    HAND-WOVEN    COVERLETS 


The  charm  of  the  coverlet  pattern 
may  not  be  at  once  apparent,  but  hang 
a  "Whig  Rose"  or  a  "Dogwood  Blos- 
som" in  the  most  elegant  parlor  you 
can  find,  and  presently  that  homespun, 
home-dyed,  home-woven  fabric  will  be 
"  the  cynosure  of  every  eye."  The  walls 
may  be  hung  with  masterpieces  in  oil 
and  water-color,  the  windows  curtained 
with  costly  lace,  the  doorways  draped 
with  portieres  of  oriental  silk  and  the 
floors  carpeted  with  oriental  rugs.  Still 
the  coverlet,  though  worn  and  faded, 
will  hold  its  own  in  the  midst  of  all 
this  magnificence,  because  the  hand  that 
made  it  was  guided  by  the  soul  of  an 
artist. 

[125] 


VI 
COVERLET  COLORS 


VI 
COVERLET  COLORS 

"//J  loveliness  increases.''^ 

N  1 817,  the  year  in 
which  Bryant's  "Than- 
atopsis"  appeared,  at 
the  beginning  of  Mon- 
roe's administration,  a 
book  was  pubUshed  with   the  following 

title: 

The 
Domestic  Manufacturer's  Assistant, 

AND 

Family  Directory, 
IN  the  Arts 

OF 

Weaving  and  Dyeing 

Comprehending 

A  Plain  System  of  Directions, 

Applying  to  Those  Arts  and  Other  Branches 

Nearly  Connected  with 


129 


A    BOOK    OF    HAND-WOVEN    COVERLETS 

Them  in  the  Manufacture  of 

Cotton  and  Woollen  Goods; 

Including  Many  Useful 

Tables  and  Drafts, 

In  Calculating  and  Forming  Various  Kinds 

and  Patterns  of  Goods 
Designed  for  the  Improvement  of  Domestic 
Manufacturers. 
By  J.  &  R.  Bronson. 
Utica. 
Printed  by  William  Williams; 
No.  60,  Genesee  Street. 

If  the  purpose  of  a  title  is  to  give  the 
reader  a  clue  to  the  character  of  the 
book  this  title  is  faultless;  and  utili- 
tarian as  the  volume  is,  it  was  doubt- 
less a  ''best  seller"  in  its  time,  for  in 
1 817  every  housewife  was  a  "Domes- 
tic Manufacturer,"  and  weaving  and 
dyeing  were  as  much  a  part  of  the  day's 
work  as  cooking  and  dish-washing. 
Indeed,  a  coat  of  arms  that  would  suit 
the  origin  of  most  American  families 
[  130] 


A    BOOK    OF    HAND-WOVEN    COVERLETS 

would  be  a  field  of  white  and  azure, 
—  the  azure  made  with  indigo  —  a  loom 
and  spinning-wheel  rampant  and  a  dye- 
pot  couchant. 

Should  you,  by  good  chance,  ever 
find  this  little  book  with  the  long  title 
amongst  the  rubbish  of  a  second-hand 
book-store,  you  will  learn  from  its  pages 
what  "woman's  work"  was  a  century 
ago,  and  you  will  read  with  wonder 
the  processes  by  which  our  ancestors 
managed  to  put  color  into  their  sur- 
roundings; for  even  Puritanism  could 
not  crush  out  their  love  of  bright  hues. 
There  must  be  brown,  drab,  gray,  and 
black  for  matron  and  man;  yes,  and 
blue,  scarlet,  and  green  for  the  maiden's 
gown  and  kirtle,  and  for  the  coverlet 
[131] 


A    BOOK    OF    HAND-WOVEN    COVERLETS 

that  draped  the  four-poster  bed.  So 
every  housekeeper  toiled  wilUngly  over 
vat  and  dye-pot;  and  the  joy  she  had 
in  her  completed  work  was  greater  than 
yours  as  you  shake  out  the  lustrous 
folds  of  silk  and  cashmere  you  have 
bought  from  the  merchant's  counter, 
for  your  joy  is  that  of  the  careless  buyer, 
and  hers  was  the  joy  of  the  toiler  and 
the  creator. 

When  ships  from  foreign  parts  came 
sailing  into  the  harbors  of  Boston,  New 
York,  and  Charleston,  they  carried  in 
their  cargoes  madder,  Nicaragua  wood, 
anotta,  Brazil  wood,  camwood,  log- 
wood, and  rocou  from  South  Amer- 
ica and  Central  America;  fustic  from  the 

West  Indies,  turmeric  and  indigo  from 

[  132] 


A    BOOK    OF    HAND-WOVEN    COVERLETS 

the  East  Indies,  tin  from  the  mines  of 
Cornwall,  cochineal  from  Mexico  and 
Central  America,  and  woad  from  Eng- 
lish fields  where  centuries  ago  the  sav- 
age Britons  gathered  it  and  stained 
their  bodies  with  the  juice, 
--v  Your  grandmother  probably  kept  all 
these  strange  things  in  her  cupboard 
and  used  them  with  the  skill  of  the  pro- 
fessional dyer.  From  cochineal,  madder, 
Nicaragua  wood,  Brazil  wood,  and  cam- 
wood she  produced  every  shade  of  scar- 
let and  crimson;  logwood  furnished  a 
black  dye;  fustic,  weld,  turmeric,  and 
anotta  gave  any  shade  of  yellow;  woad 
and  indigo  made  the  blue  dyes;  and  if 
these  commercial  articles  were  too 
costly  for  her  purse  the  forest  was  just 
[133] 


A    BOOK    OF    HAND-WOVEN    COVERLETS 

beyond  her  door,  and,  though  she  was 
no  student  of  botany,  she  knew  how 
to  gather  from  plant  and  tree  dye- 
stuffs  as  worthy  as  those  that  came 
from  beyond  the  seas.  If  she  wanted 
yellow  dye,  she  used  peach  leaves  or 
the  leaves  of  the  smart-weed  growing 
in  moist  places  by  the  wayside. 
Alder,  birch,  walnut,  hickory,  yellow 
oak,  and  Lombardy  poplar  offered  their 
bark,  and  the  sumac  its  stalks  for  the 
same  purpose.  The  butternut,  hem- 
lock, and  maple  gave  her  brown  dyes, 
and  nutgalls  made  black  or  gray.  She 
knew,  also,  how  to  produce  two  or  three 
colors  from  the  same  substance  by  using 
diiTerent  mordants  such  as  sal-ammo- 
niac, alum,  copperas,  blue  vitriol,  verdi- 
[134] 


A    BOOK   OF    HAND-WOVEN    COVERLETS 

gris,  and  cream  of  tartar;  and  she  melted 
the  block  tin  of  Cornish  mines,  dis- 
solved it  in  aqua  fortis  and  used  it  in 
dyeing  scarlet,  crimson,  and  yellow. 
Grandmother  did  not  know  it,  but  the 
art  she  dabbled  in  is  perhaps  as  old  as 
the  art  of  weaving,  and  some  of  the 
materials  she  used  were  known  cen- 
turies ago.  Traces  of  indigo  have  been 
found  in  the  garments  of  mummies 
that  were  embalmed  nearly  a  thousand 
years  before  the  birth  of  Christ.  A 
manuscript  book  on  the  art  of  dyeing 
written  in  French  in  1380  mentions 
Brazil  wood,  indigo,  gallnuts,  alum, 
copperas  and  tin,  and  an  old  fifteenth- 
century  manuscript  in  the  convent  of 
St.  Salvatore  in  Bologna  gives  directions 
[135] 


A    BOOK    OF    HAND-WOVEN    COVERLETS 

for  dyeing  with  woad,  sumac,  gallnuts, 
berries  of  the  buckthorn,  Brazil  wood, 
and  madder.  In  these  remote  times 
color  was  something  more  than  a  delight 
to  the  eye;  it  had  a  significance  and  im- 
portance unknown  to  us  who  live  under 
a  triumphant  democracy.  Among  the 
ancient  laws  of  Ireland  was  one  that 
prescribed  the  number  of  colors  that 
each  class  could  wear,  and  only  kings 
were  allowed  to  wear  seven  colors.  The 
clans  of  Scotland  were  known  by  the 
colors  of  their  tartans,  and  color  was 
a  distinguishing  feature  of  every  coat  of 
arms.  The  curtains  of  the  ark  and 
the  garments  of  the  high-priest  were 
gorgeous  with  color,  scarlet,  purple,  and 

blue;  and  in  the  thirteenth  century  the 
[136] 


A    BOOK    OF    HAND-WOVEN    COVERLETS 

Jews  excelled  all  other  nations  in  the 
dyer's  art.  But  neither  Egyptian,  Ori- 
ental, French,  Tyrian,  Italian,  or  Jewish 
dyer  ever  produced  colors  more  vivid 
and  lasting  than  those  which  came  from 
the  dye-pots  of  your  grandmother's  days. 
Do  you  know  the  blue  of  the  ocean 
in  Sir  Frederick  Leigh  ton's  pictures?  — 
that  clear,  greenish  sea-blue  that  makes 
you  think  of  fathom  on  fathom  of  ocean 
depth?  I  get  this  same  impression  of 
endless  depth  when  I  look  at  the  indigo 
blue  of  an  old  coverlet.  Place  such  a 
coverlet  as  "Double  Roses"  or  any  of 
the  "Lover's  Knots"  under  an  electric 
light,  and  you  catch  your  breath  and 
burst  into  admiring  exclamation,  as  the 
blue  designs  "standout"  from  the  back- 
[137] 


A    BOOK    OF    HAND-WOVEN    COVERLETS 

ground  of  dazzling  white  and  the  cov- 
erlet becomes  apparently  a  square  of 
embossed  velvet. 

"Lasting  Beauty"  might  be  the  name 
of  any  of  these  coverlets.  Time  has 
his  way  with  the  tints  of  a  woman's 
cheek  and  a  woman's  hair,  but  when 
he  tries  his  wicked  arts  on  grandmother's 
indigo  blue  he  stands  amazed  and  baffled, 
and  all  he  can  do  to  the  reds,  greens, 
browns,  and  yellows  that  came  from 
the  old-fashioned  dye-pots  is  to  soften 
them  to  a  delicate  beauty  that  makes 
their  old  age  better  than  their  youth. 
Are  you  a  worshipper  of  color?  Can 
you  dream  for  an  hour  over  the  dull 
pink  and  the  ivory  white  of  an  Iran  rug? 

Do  you  prowl  around  in  old  junk  shops 

[138I 


A    BOOK   OF    HAND-WOVEN    COVERLETS 

looking  for  faded  tapestry,  Belgian  or 
English?  Then  you  should  belong  to 
the  Cult  of  the  Old  Coverlet.  Never 
mind  about  the  lost  secrets  of  the  Gob- 
elin tapestry  workers;  cease  to  yearn 
for  that  Etruscan  blue  whose  formula 
perished  centuries  ago;  all  the  lost 
colors,  and  some  that  were  never  lost 
and  never  will  be  lost  you  can  find  in 
the  threads  of  those  old  coverlets,  and 
the  artist  who  mixes  the  color  will  tell 
you  her  professional  secrets. 

Here  are  some  recipes  from  Knott 
County,  Kentucky,  given  by  Mary 
Stacey,  a  mountain  woman  who  is  noted 
for  the  beauty  and  variety  of  her  vege- 
table dyes.  They  were  taken  down  in 
her  own  language: 

[139] 


A    BOOK    OF    HAND-WOVEN    COVERLETS 

"Indigo  Dye. — To  two  gallons  of 
warm  water  add  one  pint  lye  from 
wood  ashes.  Mix  one  pint  of  madder 
with  one  pint  wheat  bran,  and  a  little 
water  —  enough  to  wet  it.  Put  this  in 
the  bottom  of  the  kettle  with  a  white 
plate  over  it.  Put  the  indigo  in  a  thick 
cloth  in  the  two  gallons  of  water  and 
when  it  is  soft  rub  out  the  dye.  Then 
put  in  the  blue  yeast  saved  from  the 
last  dyeing.  Keep  it  warm  —  just  milk 
warm  —  for  four  or  five  days  without 
bothering  it.  At  night  draw  hot  ashes 
plumb  around  your  jar,  and  in  the  day- 
time keep  it  setting  by  the  hearth  just 
lukewarm  all  the  time. 

"For  a  dark  blue  let  the  yarn  lay  in 
several  hours.  Take  it  out  and  air  it 
[  140] 


A    BOOK    OF    HAND-WOVEN    COVERLETS 

and  put  it  back.  Be  sure  to  wet  the 
goods  before  you  put  it  in.  Rench  it 
in  cold  water  when  you  take  it  out. 
If  you  want  a  Hght  blue,  dip  it  over  and 
over  till  you  have  the  right  color. 

"Red.  —  Have  the  yarn  clean,  washed 
with  soap  and  renched  well.  Bile  it 
in  alum  water  a  small  while.  Take  it 
out  and  throw  out  the  alum  water. 
Then  make  a  thin  flour  starch  and  put 
in  the  madder  and  put  the  yarn  in  and 
bile  it  till  it  makes  a  good  color.  Hang 
it  out  to  dry:  Take  one  pound  of  mad- 
der to  every  three  yards  of  goods,  or 
four  pounds  of  yarn. 

"Green.  —  Peel  off  the  bark  of  black 
jack  or  black  oak.  Bile  your  bark 
much  as  half  an  hour.  Hits  awful 
[141] 


A    BOOK   OF    HAND-WOVEN    COVERLETS 

Strong.  Take  the  bark  out  and  have 
plenty  of  water  in  the  kettle.  Put  in 
some  alum  and  put  your  yarn  in  and 
bile  it  awhile,  maybe  half  an  hour. 
Wring  it  out  and  dip  it  in  blue  dye  and 
then  its  pint  blank  like  that  I  colored 
out  thar. 

"Brown.  —  Take  white  walnut  bark 
and  bile  till  its  a  good  strong  ooze,  then 
take  the  bark  out.  Put  in  the  yarn 
and  bile  it  till  its  as  dark  as  you  want  it. 

"Black.  —  When  you  take  out  your 
walnut  put  in  a  big  tablespoonful  of 
copperas.  A  handful  of  shumake  ber- 
ries makes  it  glisterin'  black." 

Mrs.  Frankie  Sturgill  of  Knott 
County,  Kentucky,  contributes  the  fol- 
lowing recipes: 

[  142] 


A    BOOK    OF    HAND-WOVEN    COVERLETS 

"Indigo  Dye.  —  Ought  to  have  wheat 
bran  if  you  can  get  it,  but  corn  bran 
will  do.  Put  in  a  little  grain  of  flour. 
Just  take  wheat  bran  and  madder,  J  lb. 
of  madder  and  a  pint  of  bran,  mix  up 
with  water,  put  in  kettle.  Make  a  little 
cotton  bag  and  put  the  indigo  in  it  and 
wet  it  and  just  keep  rubbing  out  your 
indigo,  like  bluing  in  clothes.  You  must 
let  this  set  three  or  four  days  in  summer 
and  keep  the  water  warm.  You  can 
just  put  your  hand  on  top  of  it  and  the 
indigo  will  stick  to  your  hands.  Then 
it  is  ready.  Take  water  and  mix  up 
madder  and  boil  all  together.  Dip  in 
your  wool  and  then  take  it  out  and  let 
it  air,  then  dip  again,  and  keep  on  dip- 
ping and  airing  and  rubbing  in  your 
[143] 


A    BOOK    OF    HAND-WOVEN    COVERLETS 

indigo  until  it  gits  as  dark  as  you 
want. 

''  Madder.  —  Have  your  wool  right 
clean,  washed  with  soap,  and  git  you 
some  alum.  It  takes  a  half  pound  of 
alum  for  five  yards  of  yarn.  Just  put 
in  enough  water  that  you  think  will 
cover  five  yards.  You  boil  it  in  that 
alum  water  for  half  an  hour  and  then 
take  it  out  and  air  it.  Put  in  your 
madder  and  let  it  boil  and  then  put  in 
your  wool  and  let  it  boil  about  an  hour. 
Take  out  and  wring  and  let  it  dry.  My 
mother  showed  me  how  to  do  it  when 
I  was  a  little  child. 

"Green  Dye.  —  Git  this  here  black 
jack  bark.  Have  your  yarn  dyed  in- 
digo blue  first.  Bile  it  well  and  put  in 
[144] 


A    BOOK    OF    HAND-WOVEN    COVERLETS 

a  lump  of  alum  as  big  as  your  fist.  It 
don't  take  very  much  black  jack  or 
very  much  hickory  bark,  nary  one. 
Bile  it  in  a  tolerable  large  vessel. 
When  you  get  your  ooze  biled,  take  out 
your  bark  and  put  in  the  w^ool  and 
bile  just  a  few  minutes. 

"Purple.  —  Git  maple  bark  and 
copperas. 

"Bile  your  bark  until  you  git  a  pretty 
good  ooze  and  put  in  just  a  little  grain 
of  copperas,  then  put  in  your  wool. 

"Brown,  Spruce  Pine. — Just  git 
bark  and  put  in  water  and  bile  and  do 
not  put  in  alum. 

"Chestnut  bark  makes  awful  pretty 
brown  and  hit  never  fades,  but  spruce 
pine  will  fade. 

[145] 


A   BOOK   OF   HAND-WOVEN    COVERLETS 

"Copperas  makes  walnut  dye  black.  If 
you  don't  put  in  your  copperas  it  will 
be  brown." 

"What  is  an  'ooze'?"  I  asked. 

"I  can't  tell  you  just  what  a  ooze 
is.  You  can  just  come  and  see.  Hits 
just  the  dye  that  you  put  the  wool  in 
and  if  you  want  another  ooze,  you  bile 
more  bark  and  put  it  in." 

Mrs.  Sally  Gayheart  from  the  same 
county  gives  her  methods  of  dyeing 
just  as  she  learned  them  from  her  grand- 
mother, who  was  a  Salisbury  from  "  that 
absent  and  far  away  country  they  call 
England." 

"Walnut  Dye.  —  You  want    to    git 

your  roots  and  sprouts.     Git  'em  on  the 

new  moon  in  June.     Skin  'em  from  the 
[146] 


A    BOOK    OF   HAND-WOVEN    COVERLETS 

root  up.  Bile  'em  about  two  or  three 
hours.  Bile  just  about  one  ooze.  Put 
your  wool  in  the  ooze  and  bile  it.  If 
it  haint  dark  enough,  take  out  and  bile 
more  bark  and  put  it  in  that.  A  grain 
of  copperas'U  make  it  darker.  If  you 
hang  it  out  in  the  sun,  hit'll  turn  dark. 

"Green  Dye.  —  Git  hickory  bark  any 
time.  Better  git  it  when  the  sap's  up. 
That's  heap  the  easiest  time.  Bile  out 
your  ooze,  and  put  in  a  little  alum.  Keep 
bilin'  until  it  gits  strong  enough.  Put 
in  your  wool.  You  kin  tell  when  hit's 
green  enough."  (Just  here  I  asked  Aunt 
Sally  to  make  me  a  pretty  green  cover- 
let. She  said,  "Hit's  right  smart  both- 
erment  to  put  in  just  one  kiverlet.") 

"Dye  for  Cotton.  —  Just  take  maple 
[147] 


A    BOOK    OF    HAND-WOVEN    COVERLETS 

and  chestnut  bark."  (**How  much?"  I 
asked.)  "I  never  pay  no  'tention  to  how 
much.  I  just  throw  it  in  until  I  git 
enough.  Hit'U  either  be  coal  black  or 
purple,  when  you  bile  it  enough. 

"Walnut  Dye.  —  Have  plenty  of 
white  walnut  bark.  Put  a  little  cop- 
peras in  it.  Bile  it  good  and  strong  and 
put  in  yarn.  Bile  it  till  it  gits  as  deep 
as  you  want  it. 

"Purple  or  Black.  —  Git  maple 
bark  and  bile  it.  Throw  in  a  grain  of 
copperas  and  put  in  your  wool.  Bile 
it  just  about  so  long,  if  you  want  purple, 
and  longer  if  you  want  black.  The 
longer  you  bile  it  the  darker  it  gits. 

"Green.  —  Git  black  jack  or  black  oak 

and   bile   it   right   good,   and    put    in   a 
[148] 


A    BOOK    OF    HAND-WOVEN    COVERLETS 

little  piece  of  alum.  This  makes  the  pret- 
tiest green,  mighty-nigh,  that  ever  was. 

"Yellow.  —  Git  brown  sage,^  and  bile 
it  and  put  in  a  little  alum.  It  makes 
the  prettiest  yaller  that  ever  was." 

The  indefiniteness  of  these  recipes 
is  a  proof  that  they  come  from  the 
world  of  art.  Do  you  suppose  Turner 
and  Rembrandt  could  have  given  an 
exact  formula  for  any  one  of  their  match- 
less colors.?  They  were  guided  by  a 
power  they  themselves  did  not  under- 
stand, the  power  we  call  genius,  that 
works  through  the  medium  of  a  mortal 
mind,  but  refuses  an  answer  when  we 
question:  "How?"  This  power  guides 
the  mountain  artist  when  she  puts  an 

^  Sedge  grass. 
[  149] 


A    BOOK    OF    HAND-WOVEN    COVERLETS 

unknown  quantity  of  bark  or  roots  into 
an  uncertain  quantity  of  water,  throws 
in  "  a  grain  "  of  copperas  or  * '  a  little  piece ' ' 
of  alum  and  boils  it  "just  about  so 
long." 

The  following  exact  recipes  are  for 
those  who  lack  the  intuitive  knowledge 
of  the  mountain  dyer: 

"Yellow  Hickory  Bark  Dye  for 
Wool.  —  For  one  pound  of  wool  put 
one  half  bushel  of  bark  in  kettle.  Cover 
with  water.  Boil  two  hours.  Take  out 
and  add  one  table-spoon  of  alum.  Put 
in  wool  and  boil  until  strength  is  out. 
Peach  tree  leaves  and  sage  grass  will 
color  the  same. 

"Spruce    Dye  for  Wool.  —  For  one 

pound  of  wool,  put  one  bushel  of  bark 

[ISO] 


THE    MARY    SIMMONS    COVERLET 


WOVEN    in    Warren    County, 
Ky.     Owned  by  Mrs.  Mary 
C.  Simmons,  Bowling  Green,  Ky. 


A    BOOK   OF    HAND-WOVEN    COVERLETS 

in  a  large  kettle  and  cover  with  water. 
Boil  two  hours ;  take  out  the  bark  and  put 
in  the  wool  and  boil  until  the  strength 
is  all  out  and  then  dip  in  weak  lye. 

*' Walnut  Dye  for  Wool.  —  For  one 
pound  of  wool  put  one  half  bushel  of 
bark  or  roots  in  a  kettle  and  cover  with 
water.  Boil  two  hours;  take  out  bark 
and  put  in  wool;  boil  until  strength  is 
out.  Add  one  table-spoonful  of  copperas 
to  above  if  you  want  black,  and  dip  in 
weak  lye." 

This  recipe  for  yellow  dye  comes  from 
North  Carolina: 

"Get  the  flowers  of  the  Black-eyed 
Susan,  boil  them  and  set  the  color  with 
alum." 

The  weaver  who  gave  me  this  recipe 
[151] 


A    BOOK    OF    HAND-WOVEN    COVERLETS 

said  that  a  beautiful  green  used  to  be 
made  by  dyeing  the  yarn  blue  with 
indigo  and  then  dipping  it  into  a  yel- 
low dye  made  from  the  leaves  of  a 
shrub  found  in  the  North  Carolina 
mountains,  probably  the  sweet  laurel. 
I  have  a  tiny  sample  of  yarn,  dyed  yel- 
low with  the  flowers  of  the  Black-eyed 
Susan,  and  twisted  with  it  is  a  piece 
of  brownish-black  yarn  that  owes  its  color 
to  the  "bark  from  the  roots  of  the 
butternut."  Whoever  uses  the  bark  of 
the  yellow  oak  must  know  that  there 
are  three  coats  of  bark  and  that  the 
coloring  matter  is  found  only  in  the 
middle  coat. 

Curious    color    effects    are    produced 

by  weaving  a  warp  of  one  color  with  a 

[152] 


A    BOOK   OF    HAND-WOVEN    COVERLETS 

woof  of  another.  Dark  blue  woven  with 
white  makes  a  pale  blue;  a  brownish  red 
woven  with  indigo  blue  makes  a  pur- 
plish tint,  and  a  soft  grayish  tint  comes 
from  weaving  a  blue  cotton  warp  with 
a  woof  of  natural  color  wool.  Madder 
was  generally  used  to  make  the  red  dye 
of  early  days,  and  the  weavers  of  Knott 
County,  Kentucky,  use  the  same  mad- 
der that  the  Government  uses  for  dyeing 
the  red  stripes  in  the  American  flag. 
But  occasionally  you  find  among  old 
coverlets  a  red  made  from  cochineal, 
and  a  color  expert  can  easily  distinguish 
this  from  the  madder  red. 

A    certain    Government    bulletin    on 
industries    in    the    southern    mountains 
tells  of  a  weaver  who  makes  a  blue  dye 
[153] 


A    BOOK   OF    HAND-WOVEN    COVERLETS 

equal  to  indigo  from  a  plant  known  only 
to  herself.  This  mysterious  plant  may 
be  the  weld,  a  native  of  Europe,  but 
found  in  the  eastern  part  of  the  United 
States.  The  dictionary  speaks  of 
"woad  or  weld,"  but  botany  distin- 
guishes the  two,  woad  being  isatis  tinc- 
toria,  a  member  of  the  mustard  family, 
and  weld,  reseda  luteola,  a  congener  of 
mignonette. 

A  Necessity  is  the  mother  of  more  than 
invention.  Necessity  forced  upon  the 
mountain  woman  her  knowledge  of  the 
coloring  properties  of  barks,  roots,  and 
herbs,   and    during   the   Civil   War   the 

\  same  hard  mother  taught  the  south- 
erner the  uses  of  many  a  plant  hitherto 
considered  useless  or  merely  ornamental. 
[154] 


A    BOOK   OF    HAND-WOVEN    COVERLETS 

The  following  list  of  dyes  indigenous 
to  the  southern  states  was  given  me 
by  Dr.  S.  D.  G.  Niles  of  Tennessee, 
who  copied  it  from  a  rare  old  book, 
"Resources  of  Southern  Fields  and  For- 
ests," by  Francis  Peyre  Porcher,  Sur- 
geon P.A.C.S.,  published  by  order  of  the 
Surgeon-General,  C.S.,  Charleston,  S.C., 
1863: 

Larkspur:  flowers,  a  fine  blue  dye. 

Garden  Purslane:  a  desirable  blue. 

Wild    Indigo:    blue    equal    to    com- 
mercial. 

Yellow  Locust:  Chinese  yellow  for 
silks. 

Wax    Myrtle:    dark    blue,    brown, 
black,  according  to  mordant. 
[155] 


A    BOOK    OF    HAND-WOVEN    COVERLETS 

Knot  Grass:  color  similar  to  Japan- 
ese blue. 

Blood  Root  Tribe:  a  beautiful 
dye. 

The  Spider  Wort  Tribe:  the  flower 
is  a  beautiful  blue  and  Kaempher  says 
a  color  like  ultramarine  might  be  ob- 
tained. 

Hydrastis  Canadensis:  brilliant  yel- 
low color. 

Orange  or  Yellow  Root:  with  indigo 
yields  a  rich  green. 

Turmein  or  Golden  Seal:  with  in- 
digo yields  a  rich  green. 

Yellow  Root:  plentiful  coloring  mat- 
ter, —  drab  to  wool,  rich  yellow  to  silk, 
with  Prussian  blue  strikes  dull  olive- 
green. 

[156] 


A    BOOK   OF    HAND-WOVEN    COVERLETS 

White  Ash:  the  bark  dyes  green, 
blue,  and  black. 

Onion  Tree:  with  addition  of  lime 
to  leaves  a  beautiful  green  is  obtained. 

Meadow  Garlic:  with  addition  of  lime 
to  leaves  a  beautiful  green  is  obtained. 

Chess:  a  good  green  from  flowers. 

Clematis:  yellow  from  both  leaves 
and  branches. 

Barberry:  root  boiled  in  lye,  yellow 
to  wool. 

St.  John's  Wort:  a  yellow  to  woven 
fabrics  from  its  flowers,  and  good  red 
dye  from  leaves. 

Osage  Orange:  said  to  be  equal  to 
fustic  as  yellow  dye. 

Cockle  Burr   or   Agrimony:   leaves 

and   stalks   a   beautiful   permanent  gold 

[157] 


A    BOOK    OF    HAND-WOVEN    COVERLETS 

color  to  animal  wool,  previously  impreg- 
nated with  weak  solution  of  bismuth. 

Cynara,  Artichoke:  dyes  yellow 
color. 

Sassafras:  roots  with  copperas  yield 
drab. 

Yellow  Wood:    beautiful    saffron. 

Iron-Wood:  inner  bark,  permanent 
yellow. 

Common  Nettle:  root  boiled  in  alum 
water,  a  yellow. 

Sweet  Leaf  Laurel:  yields  yellow. 

Love  Vine:  yellow  to  cloth. 

Mangrove  Tribe:  black. 

Burdock:  yellow. 

Tallow  Tree:  leaves,  a  black  dye 

Bugle   Weed:  black   to  linen,  wool, 

and  silk. 

[158] 


A    BOOK    OF    HAND-WOVEN    COVERLETS 

Dog-Bane:    black    or    brown. 

Cypress:  leaves,  a  cinnamon,  boil 
several  hours. 

Black  Alder:  indelible  orange. 

Poke  Root:  solferino;  red  ink,  alum 
to  fix. 

Red  Oak:  cream  or  black,  depending 
on  mordant. 

Persimmon  :  dye  with  iron  black,  color 
depends  on  mordant. 

Heath  Tribes:  purple  with  copperas. 

An  old  East  Tennesseean  told  me  that 
he  had  a  shawl  striped  with  green,  and 
the  color  was  made  by  dyeing  the  yarn 
blue  with  indigo  and  then  dipping  it 
into  a  dye  made  from  crab-apple  bark. 
He  said  he  had  often  gathered  willow 
[159] 


A    BOOK    OF    HAND-WOVEN    COVERLETS 

bark  from,  which  a  Hght  gray  color  was 
made,  and  he  described  accurately  the 
wild  madder  and  wild  indigo  which  made 
a  good  substitute  for  the  madder  and 
indigo  of  commerce. 

These  home-made  dyes  are  a  fascinat- 
ing study,  drawing  one  back  to  nature 
and  leading  him  into  the  secrets  of  her 
laboratory.  I  like  to  look  at  the  green 
leaves  of  the  peach,  the  golden  disk  of 
the  Black-eyed  Susan  or  the  sedge  grass 
that  gilds  the  autumn  fields,  and  know 
that  the  color  of  sunshine  may  be  dis- 
tilled from  their  juices;  and  since  I 
learned  how  the  hand-woven  coverlet 
came  by  its  splendid  hues,  I  see  in  field, 
forest,    and   garden    more    than    I    ever 

saw   before.     A   great    transcendentalist 

[160I 


A    BOOK   OF    HAND-WOVEN    COVERLETS 

says  that  everything  in  the  mineral  and 

vegetable    world    has    a    "spiritual    dy- 

namis"   that  may  be  extracted  from  it 

for  man's  use,  and  Tennyson  speaks  of 

"the  soul  of  the  rose." 

What  is  the  soul  of  a  rose,  unless  it 

be    the    color    and    the    perfume?     We 

know  how  to  prison  the  perfume  in  an 

imperishable  essence;  what  if  we  could 

fix  the  color  in  a  dye  that  would  last 

when    petal   and    calyx   had    mouldered 

back   to   earth?    The    tree   from   whose 

bark  your  grandmother  made  her  dyes 

was  felled  and   sawn  into  boards  long, 

long  ago.     Flower,  leaf,  and  fruit,  grace 

and  stateliness,  its  million  leafy  shadows 

on  the  grass  of  spring,  the  darker  shade 

of  midsummer  and  the  glory  of  its  au- 
[i6i] 


A    BOOK    OF    HAND-WOVEN    COVERLETS 

tumns,  all  are  gone,  but  in  your  cover- 
let's threads,  the  soul  of  the  tree  still 
lives. 

There  is  a  startling  brilliance  in  the 
colors  of  well-kept  coverlets.  I  have  seen 
them  come  from  the  darkness  of  cedar 
chest  or  closet  where  they  have  lain 
for  forty,  fifty,  or  sixty  years,  and  "  they 
strike  my  eye"  as  the  notes  of  a  clari- 
net would  strike  my  ear.  I  am  glad 
that  Susan  Flatcher  saw  fit  to  have  her 
name  woven  into  her  coverlet,  for  the 
woman  who  made  those  wonderful  scar- 
lets, the  deep  blue,  and  the  clear  olive- 
green,  deserves  to  be  remembered  as  a 
skilled  colorist.  I  wish  I  knew  how 
Rachel  Marran  Chambers  made  the  soft 

blue  and  the  russet  brown  of  her  **kiver," 
[162] 


A    BOOK    OF    HAND-WOVEN    COVERLETS 

and  sometime,  perhaps,  I  may  go  into 

the  forest  and  try  to  find  some  root  or 

leaf  or  bark  hitherto  untried  from  which 

the  world  may  gain  a  new  color. 

I   have   said   that   the  unfaded   colors 

"strike    the   eye,"    but    the   colors    that 

strike    both    "eye"    and    "heart"    are 

found  in  the  unappreciated,  abused,  and 

abandoned  coverlets  that  have  lain  around 

in    stables    and    barns    and    braved    the 

elements  year  after  year  journeying  to 

town    on    the    tobacco    wagon,    serving 

between   times  as  a  horse-blanket  or  a 

covering  for  a  pile  of  potatoes  down  in 

the  cellar.     When  you  see  one  of  these 

outcast    "kivers"    you   will   grieve    first 

over   its   ruinous   estate,   and    then  you 

will     rejoice    over    its     colors.     Grand- 
[163] 


A    BOOK    OF    HAND-WOVEN    COVERLETS 

mother's  dyes  were  too  intense  to  please 
the  modern  taste,  but  passed  through 
the  softening  processes  of  time  they 
turn  to  tints  that  make  an  old  coverlet 
worthy  to  stand  with  an  oriental  rug  — 
blue  like  the  color  of  eyes  washed  dim 
by  the  tears  of  a  lifetime,  brown  and 
yellow  that  match  the  leaves  of  autumn 
after  November's  rains  have  fallen  on 
them,  pale  red,  paler  pink,  and  dull 
crimson  like  faded  rose-petals,  purple 
like  withered  violets  —  and  through  the 
rags  and  tatters  of  every  breadth  a 
glimpse  of  their  former  beauty  comes 
to  you,  just  as  an  old  woman's  smile, 
or  the  ripple  of  her  snowy  hair,  suggests 
the  freshness  of  her  maidenhood. 

If    I    wanted    to    construct    a    color 

[164] 


THE  BETTY  DEAN  COVERLET 


WOVEN  in  South  Carolina 
probably  eighty  years  ago 
by  Betty  Dean  of  Yorkshire,  Efig- 
la7id.  Owned  by  her  grandson,  Dr. 
H.  P.  Cartwright  of  Bowling  Green, 
Ky.  A  design  very  similar  to  this 
is  called  ^'Winding  Leaves J^ 


A    BOOK    OF    HAND-WOVEN    COVERLETS 

scheme  that  would  speak  at  once  to  the 
eye,  the  heart,  and  the  imagination, 
I  would  not  turn  to  Persia  or  Turkey 
to  find  it.  I  would  throw  over  my 
sofa  a  threadbare  "Tennessee  Trouble" 
in  blue,  white,  and  red;  over  an  arm- 
chair I  would  drape  a  "Double  Char- 
iot Wheels"  in  black,  white,  and  dull 
crimson,  or  a  "Forty-Nine  Snowballs" 
in  gray,  tan,  and  old  rose;  and  I  would 
curtain  the  doorway  and  glorify  the 
piano  with  Rachel  Marran  Chambers, 
"Youth  and  Beauty,"  and  the  old 
Irish  "kiver"  whose  color  hesitates  be- 
tween scarlet  and  old  rose,  and  as  long 
as  their  threads  held  together  the  pres- 
ence of  these  old  coverlets  would  create 
for  me  an  abiding  Vision  of  Fair  Color. 
[165] 


A    BOOK    OF    HAND-WOVEN    COVERLETS 

In  many  coverlets  the  personality  of 
the  weaver  is  very  apparent.  The  long, 
broad,  heavy,  closely-woven  one  of  dark 
indigo  blue  and  white  is  the  coverlet 
of  the  pioneer  woman.  Such  is  Betty 
Elizabeth  Dean's  and  the  *' Blazing 
Star."  How  well  I  remember  the  Jan- 
uary day  when  I  saw  the  latter!  Over- 
head was  a  leaden  sky,  underfoot  snow 
and  ice.  The  telephone  rang  and  a 
voice  said:  *' There  are  two  coverlets 
coming  your  way." 

I  ran  to  the  porch  and  watched  the 
wagons  crawl  slowly  up  the  street,  the 
longest  and  most  heavily  loaded  wagons 
I  had  ever  seen,  and  over  each  a  ''Blaz- 
ing Star,"  dark  as  the  winter  sky,  longer 

and    broader    than    the  wagon,   and    so 
[i66] 


A    BOOK   OF    HAND-WOVEN    COVERLETS 

thick  and  heavy  that  it  required  a  man's 
strength  to  fold  it  and  carry  it  to  the 
photographer.  There  was  something 
majestic  about  these  coverlets.  Their 
folds  hung  sombre  as  a  winter  cloud, 
and  they  were  more  like  a  pall  over 
the  bier  of  a  king  than  the  covering  of 
a  commonplace  tobacco  wagon.  I 
think  the  woman  who  wove  these  cover- 
lets was  tall,  muscular,  broad-shoul- 
dered, stern  of  face  and  manner,  with 
iron-gray  hair  drawn  tightly  back  from 
her  face.  But  when  I  look  at  the 
cheerful  colors  and  elaborate  pattern  of 
my  "Tennessee  Trouble,"  I  see  a 
happy-faced  woman,  who  wore  gay-col- 
ored muslins,  put  a  flower  in  her  hair 
occasionally,  and  sang  at  her  spinning 
[167] 


A    BOOK    OF    HAND-WOVEN    COVERLETS 

and  weaving,  and  to  see  this  elaborate 
design  in  blue,  red,  and  white  is  like 
hearing  the  music  of  the  *' Carnival 
of  Venice." 


i68 


THISTLES  AND   LILIES 


PART  of  the  William  Wade  Col- 
lection. It  was  purchased  in 
Clarke  Co.,  hid.  Its  lower  border 
is  the  same  as  that  of  the  Anne 
Hay  coverlet,  a?id  the  thistle  design 
shows  that  the  weaver  was  of  Scotch 
birth. 


r 


VII 
THE    PROFESSIONAL   WEAVER 


VII 
THE   PROFESSIONAL  WEAVER 

''And  taking  the  sacred  woven-cloths  out  of  the 
treasures,  he  formed  with  them  an  awning,  a  marvel 
for  men  to  behold.  .  .  .  And  the  woven  texture  had 
pictures  such  as  these :  Uranus  collecting  the  stars 
in  the  circle  {vault)  of  ather;  the  Sun  driving  his 
horses  to  the  last  waning  light  {sunset  point),  draw- 
ing with  him  the  shining  light  of  Vesper  {the  planet 
Venus).  And  black-robed  Night  was  driving  the 
two-horse  chariot,  without  loose-reined  steeds  {side 
horses  of  the  four-horse  chariot),  and  the  Stars 
accompanied  the  goddess  {from  the  East).  The 
Pleiad  was  travelling  through  the  midway  cether, 
and  sword-bearing  Orion;  and  above  was  the  Bear 
turning  his  tail  about  the  golden  pole.^'' — Euripides, 
Ion.  Bohn's  Library  Translation,  emended  by 
Prof.  Milton  W.  Humphreys,  University  of 
Virginia. 

[171] 


A    BOOK    OF    HAND-WOVEN    COVERLETS 


OMETIMES  your  grand- 
mother's coverlet  was  a 
collaboration;  she  did  the 
carding,  spinning,  and 
dyeing,  and  a  profes- 
sional weaver  finished  the  work.  These 
skilled  weavers  came  originally  from 
European  countries  in  which  textile  art 
had  reached  a  high  degree  of  perfec- 
tion. They  plied  their  profession,  they 
taught  the  secrets  of  their  art  to 
younger  men  or  hired  apprentices,  and 
as  the  population  of  America  increased 
and  the  people  drifted  westward,  the 
weaver,  also,  moved  westward.  In  all 
of  the  older  states  we  find  his  gorgeous, 

florid  creations,  and  by  the  removal  of 

[172] 


IRISH  CHAIN 


STUDY  the  squares  of  this  cover- 
let and  you  will  find  five  de- 
signs. Observe  the  "Pine  Tree'' 
which  appears  as  a  border  in  many 
of  the  double-woven  coverlets  of  the 
" Lover  s  Knot''  pattern. 


LOVER'S   KNOT 


OVER  a  hundred  years  old. 
Double-woven,  blue  and  white. 
Owned  by  Miss  Helen  Kenyon, 
Brooklyn^  N.Y. 


A    BOOK   OF    HAND-WOVEN    COVERLETS 

families  these  are  scattered  far  and  wide. 
In  the  Httle  southern  town  where  I  Uve, 
I  can  walk  across  the  street,  around 
the  corner  or  a  few  squares  away,  and 
find  masterpieces  of  weaving  done  one 
hundred,  seventy-five,  or  fifty  years  ago 
in  New  York,  Pennsylvania,  Ohio,  Indi- 
ana, Illinois,  and  the  older  towns  of 
Kentucky,  and  if  I  find  an  "oldest  in- 
habitant" in  any  old  town  I  can  always 
gather  a  few  facts  that  bring  me  very 
near  to  the  professional  weaver. 

In  your  grandmother's  time  the  advent 
of  a  professional  weaver,  in  any  com- 
munity, must  have  produced  the  same 
excitement  that  a  new  fashion  from 
Paris  or  a  new  custom  from  England 
produces  to-day.  There  were  home- 
[173] 


A    BOOK    OF    HAND-WOVEN    COVERLETS 

w^oven  coverlets  on  every  bed,  but  a 
great  discontent  and  longing  filled  the 
heart  of  the  housewife  as  she  listened  to 
some  gossip's  tale  of  those  foreign 
weavers  who  were  making  double-woven 
coverlets  —  actually  two  separate  cov- 
erlets, but  inseparably  joined  so  as  to 
appear  one  —  and  who  used  designs 
that  made  "Governor's  Garden,"  "Sun- 
rise," and  all  the  other  familiar  fig- 
ures seem  plain  and  commonplace.  I 
am  sure  that  every  dame  who  could 
afford  such  a  luxury  made  haste  to 
spin  the  very  best  quality  of  thread, 
dye  it  with  the  choicest  colors,  and  carry 
it  to  the  nearest  artist.  "Every  man  is 
the  son  of  his  own  work,"  says  Richter; 
which  means  that  a  man's  work  influences 
[174] 


A    BOOK    OF    HAND-WOVEN    COVERLETS 

his  character  just  as  his  character  influ- 
ences his  work.  We  cannot  look  at 
the  coverlets  of  these  old  weavers  with- 
out wondering  what  manner  of  men 
these  were  who  could  make  from  such 
simple  materials  as  homespun  threads 
of  cotton  and  wool  a  perfect  image  of 
flower  and  leaf,  bird  and  beast,  as  deli- 
cately outlined  as  if  an  artist  had  drawn 
it  with  a  pencil. 

There  is  a  kind  of  brotherhood,  the 
world  over,  composed  of  wandering 
artists,  the  travelling  painter  from  Bo- 
hemia, who  knocks  at  your  door,  and 
stays  only  long  enough  to  catch  the 
fleeting  beauty  of  a  woman's  face,  pris- 
oning it  forever  in  the  colors  of  his  pal- 
ette; the  singer  who  pauses  under  your 
[175] 


A    BOOK    OF    HAND-WOVEN    COVERLETS 

window  to  sing  a  song  of  his  native  land 
and  then  goes  his  way  leaving  the  song 
in  your  heart;  the  minstrel  of  the  harp 
or  violin  who  sets  his  strings  a-thrill 
in  the  market-place  of  the  town  and 
then  goes  back  to  the  lonely,  .dusty 
road  that  the  homeless  tread ;  and  — 
close-kin  to  these  —  the  professional 
weaver  of  your  grandmother's  day, 
sometimes  an  itinerant,  sometimes  a 
permanent  resident,  but  always  a  per- 
son of  much  importance.  I  think  he 
realized  his  importance,  too,  for  often 
he  wove  his  name  and  the  name  of  his 
town,  county,  and  state  into  the  cor- 
ner of  a  coverlet  just  as  an  artist  writes 
his  name  in  a  corner  of  a  picture. 

I  have  copied  a  few  names  from  these 

[176] 


COVERLET  SHOWING  MASONIC 
EMBLEMS 


BOSTON   TOWN 


DOUBLE-WOVEN  Hue  and 
white  coverlet  owned  by  Mrs. 
H.  W .  Morehouse^  Danville^  111. 
The  border  is  called  "  Boston  Town.'' 
Woven  probably  by  Gabriel  Millery 
Bethlehem,  Pa. 


A    BOOK    OF    HAND-WOVEN    COVERLETS 

coverlet  corners  and  placed  them  on 
my  page,  because  when  a  man's  work 
lasts,  his  name  should  not  be  forgotten. 

Gabriel  Rauscher,  Pennsylvania. 

John    Mellinger    and    Son,    Penn- 
sylvania. 

J.  Gebhart,  Pennsylvania. 

F.  Metzger,  Pennsylvania. 

Ira  Hadsell,  New  York. 

J.  Conger,  New  York. 

J.  A.  Getty,  Indiana. 

Sarah    La  Tourrette  Van   Sickle, 
Indiana. 

William     Henry     Harrison     Rose, 
Rhode  Island. 
Harmon  Goodwin,  Maine. 

MowRY,  Ohio. 

[177] 


A    BOOK    OF    HAND-WOVEN    COVERLETS 

G.  Heilbron. 
Sam  Curry,  Kentucky. 
Sam  Gamble,  Kentucky. 
Anne  Hay,  Indiana. 

These  names  represent  five  national- 
ities; German,  English,  Scotch,  French, 
and  Irish.  Mowry  lived  in  Revolution- 
ary days,  and  between  us  and  most 
of  the  others  lies  the  space  of  a  long 
lifetime.  So  if  we  go  to  searching  for 
information  concerning  them,  we  are 
likely  to  run  up  against  the  blank 
wall  of  oblivion.  But  the  coverlets 
they  wove  are  still  with  us,  whole  and 
unfaded,  and  now  and  then  a  scrap  of 
biography  comes  to  me  carrying  a  dis- 
tinct picture  of  a  class  of  artists  as 
[178] 


A    BOOK    OF    HAND-WOVEN    COVERLETS 

interesting  and  as  individual  as  the  min- 
strels of  England  and  the  pipers  of 
Scotland. 

Mrs.  Hayden  Trigg  of  Glasgow,  Ken- 
tucky, gives  me  the  following  account 
of  a  weaver  who  lived  in  her  mother's 
time  and  wove  here  and  there  in  the 
county  of  Barren: 

"As  early  as  1830  there  came  to 
this  neighborhood  an  Irish  weaver, 
Sam  Gamble  by  name,  who  regularly 
made  the  rounds,  weaving  cloth  for  the 
different  families  who  lived  near  by,  and 
tarrying  longest  where  the  hospitality 
of  John  Barleycorn  offered  the  best 
inducement.  At  the  'Old  Place,'  the 
home  of  Mr.  Alanson  Trigg,  he  found 
comfort  for  both  body  and  soul  in  the 
[  179] 


A    BOOK    OF    HAND-WOVEN    COVERLETS 

fine  old  peach  brandy  distilled  from 
the  fruit  of  the  orchard  and  stored 
away  in  pantry  and  cellar,  and  here  he 
would  linger  for  months  plying  his 
trade  with  the  assistance  of  'Aunt 
Rose/  the  'Black  Mammy,'  who  spun 
the  thread,  filled  the  bobbins,  and 
threaded  the  sley.  The  woolen  woof 
was  made  from  the  fleece  of  sheep  that 
grazed  on  the  neighboring  hillside,  and 
probably  the  cotton  thread,  too,  was 
a  home  product.  The  music  of  Sam 
Gamble's  shuttle  delighted  the  whole 
family,  for  to  the  negroes  it  meant  new 
clothes  at  Christmas  time;  to  the  mis- 
tress it  meant  fleecy  blankets  and  gay 
coverlets,  and    all    these    were    colored 

with  dyes  made  from  barks   and   roots 

[i8o] 


BIRDS  OF  PARADISE 


WOVEN  in  New  York  nearly 
one  hundred  years  ago. 
Owned  by  Mrs.  J.  M.  Galloway, 
Bowling  Green,  Ky.  Colors,  blue 
a7id  white. 


THE  JOHN  GERARD   COVERLET 


DOUBLE-WOVEN  blue  and 
white  coverlet  owned  by  Mrs. 
John  Gerard,  Bowling  Green,  Ky. 
Woven  in  Ohio.  The  border  is  sim- 
ilar to  the  side  border  of  Anne  Hay^s 
coverlet  and  almost  the  counterpart 
of  the  border  07i  ''Frenchman's 
Fancy." 


A    BOOK    OF    HAND-WOVEN    COVERLETS 

of  trees  that  grew  around  the  'Old 
Place.'  Sam  Gamble's  Irish  wit  and 
good-nature  made  him  a  welcome  guest 
wherever  he  went,  but  he  left  the 
neighborhood  in  1844,  and  was  never 
seen  there  again.  The  oldest  inhabi- 
tants still  remember  him,  and  the  rec- 
ord he  left  behind  him  is  a  good  one: 
'What  he  did,  he  did  well.'  Surely,  in 
spite  of  his  fondness  for  peach  brandy, 
his  reward  in  the  hereafter  is  a  glorious 
certainty." 

Fifty  or  sixty  years  ago,  Sam  Curry, 
a  compatriot  of  Sam  Gamble,  practised 
his  profession  in  the  counties  of  Scott, 
Fayette,  and  Bourbon.  I  have  seen 
three  of  his  coverlets,  all  double-woven 

in    the    "Lover's    Knot"    design,    with 
[181] 


A    BOOK   OF   HAND-WOVEN    COVERLETS 

the  "Pine  Tree"  border.  I  never  meet 
this  design,  so  classic  in  its  simpUcity 
and  beauty,  that  I  do  not  think  there 
must  have  been  something  fine  in  the 
character  of  the  man  who  loved  to 
weave  it.  Many  a  Kentucky  family 
possesses  a  "Lover's  Knot"  woven  by 
this  Irish  artist,  but  the  only  personal 
reminiscence  of  Sam  Curry  that  I  have 
been  able  to  find  is  the  fact  that  he  was 
"a  terrible  drunkard."  I  wish  those 
for  whom  he  worked  had  remembered 
and  handed  down  to  us  something 
besides  this  mention  of  his  human 
frailty.  They  might  have  said  that  he 
was  a  merry  soul,  that  little  children 
followed  him  and  clung  to  him,  and  that 

he   told   them   tales  and   sang   to  them 

[182] 


A    BOOK   OF    HAND-WOVEN    COVERLETS 

when    his    day's    work    was    over;    but 
Tradition  is  a  foolish  old  hag  who 

".  .  .  stores  her  chaff  in  bins 
And  throws  away  the  grain." 

So  all  we  know  of  this  master  of 
weaving  is  that  he  was  a  drunkard  and 
that  the  "Lover's  Knot"  pleased  his  taste. 

If  the  coverlet  is  not  inscribed  with 
a  name,  a  place,  and  a  date,  the  design 
may  give  you  a  clue  to  the  national- 
ity of  the  weaver.  Whenever  I  see  the 
flower  of  the  thistle  or  the  tiny  bells 
of  heather,  I  say:  "A  Scotchman  wove 
that."  The  Bird  of  Paradise,  so  fre- 
quent in  old  English  tapestries,  shows 
that  the  weaver  was  of  English  birth. 
The    "Lion    and    Eagle"    coverlet    was 

the  work  of  an  English  immigrant  who 

[183] 


A    BOOK    OF    HAND-WOVEN    COVERLETS 

loved  both  the  land  of  his  adoption  and 
the  land  of  his  birth.  I  used  to  think 
that  if  two  coverlets  showed  the  same 
design  it  was  a  positive  proof  that  the 
same  hand  wove  both,  but  I  found 
later  that  the  designs  of  the  profes- 
sional weaver,  like  the  mountain  de- 
signs, were  common  property;  Gabriel 
Rauscher  and  John  Mellinger  both  used 
the  *'Almira"  design,  and  the  "Double 
Rose"  design  is  found  in  the  work  of 
Conger,  Heilbron,  the  two  Mellingers, 
Metzger,  Gebhart,  and  Rauscher.  The 
coverlets  woven  by  these  men  are  either 
double-woven  or  of  tapestry  weave,  and 
double-weaving  seems  to  have  been  an 
open  secret  in  Europe  at  the  time  these 

weavers  lived,  for  we  find  double-woven 

[184] 


THE  ANNE  HAY  COVERLET 


DOUBLE-WOVEN  coverlet, 
blue  and  white,  woven  by  Anne 
Hay,  Scott  County,  Ind.  Owned  by 
Anne  Hay  s  granddaughter,  Mrs. 
W.  B.  Mayes,  Bowling  Green,  Ky. 


LION  AND  EAGLE 


DOUBLE  -  WOVEN  coverlet 
owned  by  Mrs.  William  H. 
Matthews,  Pittsburg,  Pa.  Observe  the 
British  lion  and  the  American  eagle. 


A    BOOK   OF    HAND-WOVEN    COVERLETS 

coverlets  of  English,  Irish,  Scotch, 
French,  and  German  manufacture.  I 
had  a  theory  that  only  men  did  double- 
weaving,  but  Anne  Hay's  double-woven 
coverlet  upset  my  theory  and  a  year 
later  I  discovered  Sarah  La  Tourrette 
Van  Sickle,  who  was  in  her  youth 
a  mistress  of  double-weaving.  Anne 
Hay  was  a  Scotch  maiden  who  came 
to  this  country  and  settled  in  Indiana. 
Her  granddaughter  remembers  the 
loom  which  was  brought  from  Scot- 
land, and  which  may  yet  be  standing  in 
the  weaving-room  at  the  old  home- 
stead. Anne  Hay  married  an  Oldfield, 
and  on  his  death  she  married  James 
Getty,    a    weaver,    probably    the   J.    A. 

Getty    who    wove    the    Lockport,    New 
[185] 


A    BOOK    OF    HAND-WOVEN    COVERLETS 

York,  coverlet  with  the  date  of  the 
Declaration  of  Independence  in  one 
corner.  It  is  also  probable  that  Anne 
Hay  wove  "Thistles  and  Lilies,"  as  the 
border  is  the  same  in  both  coverlets, 
and  the  dates  are  only  a  few  years  apart, 
1850  to  1858. 

When  I  discovered  the  John  Mel- 
linger  coverlet  I  wrote  to  a  friend  in 
Pennsylvania,  and  he  at  once  identified 
John  Mellinger  as  an  old  acquaintance 
of  his  boyhood,  known  then  as  "Thread 
Jock,"  because  of  the  threads  that 
always  stuck  to  his  coat. 

While  I  was  writing  this  chapter  I 
strayed  into  a  loan  exhibit  one  day  to 
see  the  old  coverlets.  A  dingy  half- 
coverlet  caught  my  glance.  The 
f  186I 


A    BOOK   OF    HAND-WOVEN    COVERLETS 

"Double  Rose"  design  reminded  me 
at  once  of  the  Mellingers  and  Rauschers, 
and  when  I  looked  in  the  corner  I  was 
not  surprised  to  find  the  name  of  Ga- 
briel Rauscher.  I  sought  the  owner  of 
the  half-coverlet,  found  that  his  wife 
was  a  Rauscher,  and  learned  how  the 
German  Rauscher  came  by  the  French 
name  Gabriel.  The  Rauscher  family- 
came  to  America  from  Elsass,  or  Alsace, 
in  Lorraine  when  that  province  was 
under  French  rule.  The  coverlet  had 
been  cut  in  two  in  order  that  a  brother 
and  a  sister  might  share  this  heirloom. 

A  writer  in  one  of  the  bulletins  of 
the  Art  Institute  of  Chicago  says  that 
such    coverlets    as    "Bird    of   Paradise" 

and    similar    designs    were    not    woven 

[187] 


A    BOOK    OF    HAND-WOVEN    COVERLETS 

after  1861.  The  outbreak  of  the  war 
did  silence  the  looms  for  a  while.  As 
one  writer  pathetically  expresses  it: 

*'When  the  war  began,  no  more  yarn 
was  brought  to  the  weavers.  The  men 
went  to  war  and  the  women  went  to  the 
fields,  so  the  looms  had  to  quit  work." 
It  is  impossible  to  say  when  the  last 
double-woven  coverlet  was  made.  We 
only  know  that  as  the  abandoned  looms 
fell  into  decay  and  rust  and  the  weavers 
passed  away,  double-weaving  became  a 
lost  art  in  this  country.  Instructions  for 
doing  double-weaving  could  be  found  in 
certain  text-books,  but  those  who  tried 
to  put  the  teaching  into  practice  met 
with  failure.  How  the  art  of  double- 
weaving  was  revived  in  this  country  is 


THE    DOUBLE    ROSES 


TAPESTRY  weave.  Colors  the 
same  as  the  John  Mellinger 
coverlet.  Ow7ied  by  Mr.  Henry 
Reiff,  Oakland,  Ky.  Susan  Fletcher 
spun  and  dyed  the  thread. 


CHANTICLEER 


WOVEN  when  Berlin  zvas 
a  Mennonite  settlement. 
Owned  by  Airs.  E.  L.  Painter,  Mt. 
Vernon,  Ohio.  In  184.4.  J^^'^nes  K. 
Polk  of  Tennessee  and  George  M. 
Dallas  of  Pennsylvania  were  the 
Democratic  candidates  for  the  -presi- 
dency and  vice-presidency,  and  about 
this  time  the  "Rooster"  was  made 
the  emblem  of  the  Democratic  party. 


A    BOOK   OF    HAND-WOVEN    COVERLETS 

best  told  in  the  words  of  Mr.  William 
Wade: 

"Shortly  after  I  got  my  *  Lover's 
Knot'  from  Somerset  County,  Pa.,  I 
was  impressed  by  its  '  tuck-in-a-bility,' 
it  being  so  much  softer  and  more  pli- 
able than  coverlets  even  lighter  in  weight. 
On  investigation  I  found  it  was  because 
the  coverlet  was  really  two  separate 
fabrics.  I  asked  Mrs.  Hill  of  Berea 
and  the  Hindman  folks  about  that 
/  peculiar  weave,  and  learned  that  there 
V  were  four  different  weaves,  single,  six- 
shaft,  eight-shaft,  and  double.  I  went 
on  finding  double-woven  coverlets  in 
Pennsylvania,  Indiana,  and  New  York. 
Then  I  set  out  to  find  somebody  who 

knew  how   to  do  double-weaving.     For 
[189I 


A    BOOK   OF   HAND-WOVEN    COVERLETS 

a  long  time  I  was  knocked  from  pillar 
to  post.  Some  weavers  in  Wisconsin 
thought  they  knew  it,  but  I  soon  found 
they  did  not.  I  discovered  an  old 
woman  in  West  Virginia  who  evidently 
understood  it,  but  she  was  verging  on 
her  second  childhood  and  could  not 
teach  it.  All  the  time  I  was  making 
this  search  I  knew  it  was  done  in 
Europe,  especially  in  the  Scandinavian 
countries,  so  I  looked  up  a  Norse  book 
on  weaving  and  had  enough  translated 
to  show  me  that  it  would  not  suffice  to 
teach  it.  About  this  time  I  made  the 
acquaintance  of  Miss  Grace  Tabor  of 
New  York,  a  charming  writer  on  art, 
gardening,  etc.  She  was  much  inter- 
ested in  the  double-weaving  and  joined 
[  190] 


A    BOOK    OF    HAND-WOVEN    COVERLETS 

me  in  my  search  for  a  weaver.  At 
last  she  wrote  to  me:  'Eureka!'  She 
had  found  Mrs.  Anna  Ernberg,  a  native 
of  Sweden  —  (the  daughter  of  an  officer 
of  the  Swedish  Army)  —  and  an  expert 
in  all  kinds  of  weaving. 

"I  have  long  thought  that  if  the  cov- 
erlet industry  at  Berea  is  to  pay,  it 
must  get  away  from  single-weaving,  as 
that  has  come  to  be  a  'fad'  and  the 
market  will  soon  be  overstocked.  I 
brought  Mrs.  Ernberg  to  the  notice  of 
President  Frost  of  Berea,  and  she  was 
engaged  to  succeed  Mrs.  Jennie  Lester 
Hill,  under  whose  superintendence  the 
Department  of  Fireside  Industries  had 
become  justly  famous.  Mrs.  Ernberg 
is  to  give  lessons  in  double-weaving  to 
[191] 


A    BOOK    OF    HAND-WOVEN    COVERLETS 

a  weaver  from  Knott  County,  Ken- 
'.  tucky.  This  weaver  will  carry  the 
knowledge  to  her  mountain  home,  and 
in  time  double-weaving  may  be  as  fre- 
quent here  as  it  is  in  Europe.'* 

Looking  at  the  designs  of  these  cov- 
erlets is  like  walking  in  strange  gardens. 
Here  flits  the  Bird  of  Paradise,  here 
bloom  thistles,  roses,  lilies,  and  clem- 
atis, and  the  wild  cactus  shows  both 
flower  and  fruit;  here  are  flower  and 
leaf  conventionalized  beyond  recogni- 
tion, and  in  the  coverlet's  border  you 
will  find  things  as  interesting  and 
mysterious  as  the  hieroglyphics  of 
Egypt.  History,  politics,  and  masonry 
jostle    each    other;    there    are    churches 

and  dwellings;  the  architecture  of  Bos- 
[192] 


BIRD  OF  PARADISE 


WOVEN  in  Genessee  County, 
N.Y.  Part  of  the  William 
Wade  Collection.  Notice  its  re- 
semblance to  English  tapestry. 


THE   IDA   P.    ROGERS   COVERLET 


WOVEN  in  Washington 
County,  Pa.y  about  eighty 
years  ago.  Double-woven,  blue  and 
white,  all  in  one  piece.  Owned  by 
Mrs.  S.  G.  Rogers,  Bowling  Green, 
Ky. 


A    BOOK   OF    HAND-WOVEN    COVERLETS 

ton  Town  and  the  architecture  of  the 
Orient,  palm  trees  and  pine  trees,  an 
American  eagle  and  a  ridiculous  jacka- 
napes, and  a  friend  tells  me  of  one 
border  that  must  have  been  inspired  by 
"A  Midsummer  Night's  Dream,"  as 
it  consisted  of  donkeys  with  cupids 
hovering  around.  Doubtless  an  unfor- 
tunate love  affair  had  taught  the  weaver 
that  Cupid  doth  make  donkeys  of  us 
all. 

But  after  puzzling  and  wondering 
over  the  elaborate  patterns  of  the  pro- 
fessional weaver,  I  turn  lovingly  back 
to  the  old  homespun,  home-woven 
*'kiver."  I  am  sure  these  professional 
weavers  loved  their  work,  but  they 
wrought  for  money's  sake  as  well  as 
[  193  ] 


A    BOOK   OF    HAND-WOVEN    COVERLETS 

for  art's  sake,  and  their  work  lacks 
the  quality  that  our  spiritual  sense 
apprehends  when  we  touch  an  old  cov- 
erlet made  by  the  toil-worn  hands  of 
a  patient  woman  who  wove  with  her 
threads  a  thought  of  love  for  the  home 
that  would  be  beautified,  and  another 
thought  for  the  husband  and  children 
who  would  sleep  warmer  through  all 
life's  winters  under  her  blue-and-white 
coverlet. 

Miss  Grace  Tabor  says  that  such 
coverlets  as  "E  Pluribus  Unum"  are  to 
the  textile  world  what  Raphael's  "Trans- 
figuration" is  to  the  world  of  art;  but 
when  I  look  at  "E  Pluribus  Unum"  and 
its  companions,  their  historical  signif- 
icance wholly  overshadows  their  art. 
[194] 


A    BOOK    OF    HAND-WOVEN    COVERLETS 

There  are  no  New  Worlds  to-day. 
All  the  strangeness  and  wonder  of  the 
earth  are  gone.  But  the  designs  and 
inscriptions  on  some  of  these  cover- 
lets recall  the  day  when  every  wind 
that  blew  eastward  across  the  ocean 
brought  with  it  a  story  that  passed  from 
lip  to  lip  till  it  was  told  in  every  language 
of  the  Old  World.  It  was  a  fairy  tale 
of  the  centuries,  the  tale  of  a  New  World 
where  there  were  no  popes,  no  priests,  no 
kings,  no  nobles ;  where  the  land  reached 
from  ocean  to  ocean  and  the  poorest 
man  could  have  his  share  of  it  for  the 
asking;  where  the  mountains  had  their 
summits  in  the  sky  and  the  rivers  began 
and  ended  no  man  knew  where.  There 
was  gold  in  the  mines;  a  fountain  of 
[195] 


A    BOOK    OF    HAND-WOVEN    COVERLETS 

Perpetual  Youth,  an  El  Dorado,  and 
above  all.  Freedom,  the  right  to  wor- 
ship God  according  to  the  dictates  of 
conscience;  the  right  to  life,  liberty, 
and  the  pursuit  of  happiness.  And  for 
love  of  liberty  and  right  men  left  the 
homes  of  their  forefathers  and  braved 
the  perils  of  the  sea  to  reach  the  shores 
of  this  New  World. 

A  New  World!  There  is  something 
in  these  words  that  makes  the  heart 
leap.  We  are  all  searching  for  new 
worlds  or  trying  to  turn  old  worlds 
into  new  ones,  and  we  know  how  the  tales 
of  the  early  explorers  must  have  stirred 
men's  hearts  two  or  three  centuries 
ago,  and  how  the  magic  of  "America" 

continues     to     charm     to    our     shores 
[196] 


E  PLURIBUS    UNUM 


PART  of  the  Willia7n  JVade  Col- 
lection. The  owner  consid- 
ered it  the  fi,nest  piece  of  weaving  he 
had  ever  seen. 


X^.yi^(:*^i^t|t^XlHii 


FREEDOM'S  HOME 


PART  of  the  William  Wade  Col- 
lection. 


A    BOOK    OF    HAND-WOVEN    COVERLETS 

"the  oppressed  of  all  nations."  The 
immigrant  of  to-day  may  not  find  all 
he  is  seeking,  but  the  immigrant  of 
those  early  days  did  find  the  fulfilment 
of  his  heart's  desire,  and  as  the  Puri- 
tan knelt  on  the  rocky  shores  of  Mas- 
sachusetts and  offered  thanks  to  God 
for  the  boon  of  freedom,  the  weaver 
likewise  set  up  his  loom  and  expressed 
his  gratitude  and  his  patriotism  by 
weaving  into  a  coverlet  the  emblems 
of  his  country  or  his  party.  It  was  no 
accident  that  placed  the  Bird  of  the 
Morning  in  the  corners  of  the  cover- 
let woven  in  Berlin  County,  Ohio,  in 
1844.  This  coverlet  is  a  paragraph 
from   American   annals    telling    us    that 

about   this   time   the   Democratic   party 

[  197] 


A    BOOK   OF   HAND-WOVEN    COVERLETS 

was  formed  and  chanticleer  with  flap- 
ping wings  was  made  the  party  device. 
The  man  who  wove  the  word  "Lib- 
erty" thirty-six  times  into  the  fabric 
of  his  coverlet  must  have  loved  lib- 
erty as  Patrick  Henry  and  Thomas 
Jefferson  loved  it.  I  find  in  "  E  Pluribus 
Unum"  and  "Freedom's  Home"  all  that 
Francis  Scott  Key  and  Samuel  Smith  felt 
when  they  wrote  "The  Star-Spangled 
Banner"  and  "My  Country,  'Tis  of 
Thee";  and  when  I  read  on  the  cover- 
let's border  the  name  of  the  woman 
who  chose  the  pattern  and  ordered  the 
weaving  I  think  she  was  a  truer  Daugh- 
ter of  the  American  Revolution,  a  truer 
Colonial  Dame  than  the  Daughters  and 

Dames  of  to-day,  who  would   smile   in 
[198] 


A   BOOK   OF   HAND-WOVEN    COVERLETS 

aesthetic  scorn  at  the  thought  of  sleep- 
ing under  a  bed-spread  displaying  this 
somewhat  grotesque  mixture  of  stars, 
shields,  flags,  spread-eagles,  arrows, 
domes,  and  patriotic'  mottoes.  Mon- 
cure  D.  Conway  says  that  the  history 
of  tobacco  is  the  history  of  American 
liberty.  But  read  again  the  historic 
names  beginning  with  Indian  Warfare 
and  ending  with  Lee's  Surrender,  then 
study  these  inscriptions  and  designs,  and 
you  will  see  the  history  of  American 
liberty  told  again  in  the  old  hand-woven 
coverlet. 

Of  the  weavers  whose  names  are  pre- 
served in  this  book,  only  three  are  liv- 
ing;   William     Henry     Harrison     Rose, 
the    last    of    the   professional    weavers 
[199] 


A    BOOK   OF   HAND-WOVEN    COVERLETS 

of   Rhode    Island,    Sarah    La   Tourrette 

Van    Sickle    of    Indiana,    and    Harmon 

Goodwin     of     Maine.     The     world     in 

which    these    weavers    once    lived    has 

passed   away,   and   they  themselves  are 

like    apparitions    in    the    world    to-day. 

One   who   had   recently   penetrated  the 

seclusion  that  surrounds  William  Henry 

Harrison  Rose  says  of  him: 

"When    I    called    at    this    weaver's 

home,     I     was     admitted     by    an    old 

woman  of  small  stature,  who  informed 

me  that  she  was  a  sister  of  the  weaver, 

and    that   he   was   in   the   field   a   short 

distance   from   the   house.     She   blew   a 

blast   on    a    cockleshell,    which    notified 

the    weaver    that    he    was    wanted    at 

the  house.     In  a  few  minutes  I  beheld 
[  200] 


DECLARATION  OF  INDEPENDENCE 


o 


WNED  by  Mrs.  William  J. 
Fefider,  Lockport,  N.Y. 


LIBERTY 


A  PENNSYLVANIA  coverlet. 
History  unknown.  Notice  the 
picture  of  General  Washington  in 
the  corner. 


\'  \\ 


A    BOOK   OF    HAND-WOVEN    COVERLETS 

an  old  man,  with  long  white  hair  and 
flowing  white  beard  and  bare  feet, 
approaching  the  house.  He  carried  a 
scythe  over  his  shoulder,  and  for  an 
instant  I  was  startled,  as  the  old  man's 
appearance  was  the  most  perfect  pic- 
ture of  Father  Time  I  have  ever  seen. 
The  house  is  as  singular  as  the  people 
who  live  in  it.  A  low  stone  wall  runs 
across  the  front  of  the  yard,  with  a 
large  white  boulder  at  each  corner.  On 
the  top  of  the  wall  are  shells  bleached 
to  snowy  whiteness  by  the  rains  and  suns 
of  many  years.  A  wooden  fence  sep- 
arates the  yard  from  the  garden,  and  on 
every  post  hung  two  white  shells.  In 
the  yard  there  are  seven  bird-houses 
of    modern    architecture.     The    weaver 

f  20I  1 


A    BOOK    OF    HAND-WOVEN    COVERLETS 

and  his  sister  have  Uved  here  for  more 
than  eighty  years.  Once  a  year  he 
goes  to  Providence,  a  carpet  bag  in  his 
hand,  carpet  shppers  on  his  feet,  and  a 
rope  tied  round  his  waist.  As  he  walks 
the  city  streets  the  hurrying  throng 
pauses  to  look  after  him,  for  he  seems  a 
being  from  the  Ages  Long  Since  Gone.'* 

The  old  Rhode  Islander  learned  the 
art  of  weaving  from  his  grandfather, 
who  was  a  pupil  of  William  Reed,  a 
celebrated  English  weaver.  Rose  is  an 
original  designer  and  possesses  many 
rare  drafts,  which  he  occasionally  loans 
to  fellow-weavers  of  whose  honesty  he 
feels  assured. 

Harmon  Goodwin  is  also  an  original 

designer.     Two    of    his    original    drafts 

f  202 1 


A    BOOK    OF    HAND-WOVEN    COVERLETS 

bear  the  names,  "Path  of  the  Sun- 
beam" and  "The  King's  Garden,"  by 
which  tokens  we  know  him  to  be  a  poet 
also. 

The  word  "Liberty"  may  not  be 
woven  into  any  of  Sarah  La  Tourrette's 
coverlets,  but  you  may  read  it  between 
the  lines  of  family  history  that  tell  how 
these  French  Huguenots  chanced  to 
come  to  America.  Taking  the  name 
La  Tourrette  as  a  clue  we  can  go  back 
through  five  centuries  of  French  his- 
tory to  the  time  when  the  De  La  Tour- 
rettes  were  Keepers  of  the  Little  Tower. 
There  is  a  tradition  that  a  De  La  Tour- 
rette came  to  this  country  with  La 
Salle,     and     it   is    certain     that    about 

eighty-eight     years     after     the     Revo- 

[203] 


A    BOOK    OF    HAND-WOVEN    COVERLETS 

cation  of  the  Edict  of  Nantes  a  younger 
son  of  one  branch  of  the  Tourrette 
family  came  to  America  and  settled  on 
Staten  Island  in  1773.  In  the  same 
year  a  son  John  was  born  and  this  son 
was  the  father  of  Sarah  La  Tourrette. 
John  La  Tourrette  was  a  weaver  by 
birth  and  training.  More  than  three 
centuries  ago  the  Tourrettes  practised 
the  weaver's  art  in  a  crude  way.  In 
Florida  in  1566  there  were  weavers  by 
that  name.  They  probably  belonged 
to  the  ill-fated  colony  that  settled  on 
St.  John's  river  in  1564  and  were  ex- 
terminated by  the  Spanish  governor, 
Menendez. 

Between    1750    and    1760    the    Tour- 
rettes  acquired,   in    France,    the    art   of 
[204] 


LA  FRANCE 


COVERLET  of  dark  blue,  white, 
green,  and  old  rose.  Woven 
in  France  three  generations  ago. 
Owned  by  Mrs.  Hubert  W .  Bessey, 
Stuart,  Fla. 


FRENCHMAN'S  FANCY 


PART  of  the  William  Wade  Col- 
lection. The  border  seems  to 
show  the  flowers  and  fruit  of  the 
wild  cactus  slightly  conventional- 
ized. 


A    BOOK   OF    HAND-WOVEN    COVERLETS 

double-weaving,  and  it  is  said  of  John 
La  Tourrette  that  he  could  weave  any 
fabric  from  coverlets  to  the  finest  table 
linen,  and  goods  for  wearing  apparel, 
and  he  also  made  his  own  loom  and 
designed  many  patterns.  He  estab- 
lished himself  in  Indiana  in  the  neigh- 
borhood of  Covington  and  set  up  a 
factory  with  four  large  looms.  Before 
the  Civil  War  laid  a  paralyzing  hand 
on  all  industry  a  thousand  double- 
woven  coverlets  were  sent  out  from  this 
factory,  and  most  of  these  were  woven 
by  Sarah  La  Tourrette,  on  whom  the 
mantle  of  her  father's  skill  had  fallen. 

Memory  must  stretch  her  wings   for 
a  long  backward  flight  when   Sarah  La 

Tourrette   begins  to  talk   of  her  youth, 

[205] 


A    BOOK    OF    HAND-WOVEN    COVERLETS 

for  she  is  now  eighty-nine  years  old; 
but  her  mind  is  unimpaired  and  she 
loves  to  talk  of  the  time  when  she  was 
young  and  strong  and  the  fame  of  her 
weaving  went  abroad  in  the  state.  She 
used  to  weave  on  an  average  three 
coverlets  a  week,  and  if  a  customer  was 
impatient  for  his  order  to  be  filled  she 
could  make  one  a  day.  (The  price 
for  a  double-woven  coverlet,  by  the 
way,  was  ten  or  twelve  dollars.)  Forty 
pounds  of  homespun  linen  thread  were 
required  to  string  the  loom,  and  John's 
wife.  Mother  La  Tourrette,  used  to 
spin  this  thread.  Two  thousand 
threads  came  down  from  the  cross- 
piece    of    the    loom,    and    when    Sarah 

was  working  she  could  hardly  be   seen 

[206] 


A    BOOK   OF    HAND-WOVEN    COVERLETS 

by  a  person  coming  in  at  the  other  end 
of  the  building. 

Charles  K.  Bright,  a  nephew  of  Sarah 
La  Tourrette,  gives  me  the  following 
description  of  the  way  the  professional 
weaver  wove  his  florid  patterns: 

"The  patterns  consisted  of  heavy 
card-board,  about  six  inches  by  two 
feet,  and  punched  full  of  holes,  the 
size  of  a  lead  pencil,  and  one  hundred 
and  eighty  of  them  joined  together 
like  the  straw-carrier  of  a  threshing 
machine,  or  moved  on  the  principle 
that  the  bundles  of  grain  are  fed  into 
the  modern  threshing  machine.  These 
were  changed  to  make  different  figures 
or  flowers,  which  were  called  'Lafay- 
ette's Fancy,'  *  Rose-of-Sharon,'  etc., 
[  207  ] 


A    BOOK    OF    HAND-WOVEN    COVERLETS 

etc.  There  was  a  sort  of  needle  for 
every  hole  in  the  pattern,  and  in  each 
of  these  there  was  a  stout  cord  the 
size  of  fine  fish-line,  and  at  the  other  end 
of  the  cord  was  attached  a  lead  weight 
eight  inches  long  and  the  size  of  a 
small  pencil.  This  labyrinth  of  cords 
and  weights  resembled  somewhat  the 
profile  of  a  monster  fashionable  lady  in 
hoop-skirt,  trimmed  with  flounce  or 
ruflfle  of  eighteen  hundred  medium- 
sized  pencils.  As  the  weaver  bore  down 
on  the  *  treadle'  with  his  foot  the 
needles  were  inserted  in  aforesaid  holes; 
when  the  foot  was  raised  the  weights  re- 
leased the  needles;  the  other  foot  was 
then  used,  and  other  needles  and  holes 

brought  into  use,  and  so  on  alternately, 
[208] 


LOVER'S   CHAIN  or   LOVER'S  KNOT 


DOUBLE-WOVEN,  blue, white, 
and  a  very  peculiar  pinkish 
red.  Woven  by  Sam  Curry.  Owned 
by  Airs.  S.  H.  Yancey,  Lexington, 
Ky. 


m 


THE    FLORA    WOODBURY    COVERLET 


OWNED  hy  Miss  Flora  Wood- 
bury, Danville,  III.  Double- 
woven,  red,  white,  and  blue.  Made 
in  i8^S.  Observe  the  likeness  to 
*' Irish  Chain." 


ATyV. 


)UIJL 


}{  )   K 


ii  it  rt 


mmitttX 


H    I! 


JUl Jl  IJUUl 


W     H  111  If  ft 


t):c 


kkl. 


Mmmm 


X 


A    BOOK    OF    HAND-WOVEN    COVERLETS 

day  in  and  day  out,  almost  *ad  in- 
finitum.' " 

But  all  that  the  unlearned  reader 
gains  from  this  explanation  is  a  clearer 
impression  of  the  difficulty  of  the  work 
and  a  deeper  admiration  for  the  weaver 
who  could  thread  her  way  through  this 
"labyrinth"  and  produce  a  texture  like 
"Double  Roses"  or  "Bird  of  Paradise." 
Perhaps  Jacquard  patterns  and  looms 
like  John  La  Tourrette's  were  known 
in  Euripides'  day,  for  how  else  could 
Creusa  have  woven  into  her  web  "a 
Gorgon  fringed  with  serpents?" 

The  Tourrette  name  is  an  honorable 
one  in  France.  A  Tourrette  daughter 
once  married  into  the  nobility  of  Italy, 

and  one  of  her  descendants  is  the  pres- 

[209] 


A    BOOK    OF    HAND-WOVEN    COVERLETS 

ent    Count    de     Portales    of    Florence, 

Italy.     The  Indiana  Tourrettes,  on  the 

contrary,        call        themselves        "plain 

people,"   and    their   only   boast   is    that 

their  ancestors  have  fought  in  every  war 

for  liberty  this  country  ever  had.     Sarah 

La  Tourrette  might  be  a  Colonial  Dame 

and   a   D.   A.    R.,   for   her  grandfather 

fought  in  the  American  Revolution  from 

1776  to   1783;  her  father  served  in  the 

second    war    with    England    from    1812 

to  1 8 14,  and  her  three  brothers  fought 

on  the  Union  side  in  the  Civil  War. 

The    house    that   John    La   Tourrette 

built  is  standing  yet;  a  few  yards  away 

from  it  is   the    old    loomhouse,  and    in 

the  loft  is  one  of  the  looms  at  which 

the  beautiful  French  girl  used  to  stand 
[210] 


A    BOOK    OF    HAND-WOVEN    COVERLETS 

weaving  such  patterns  as  "Jefferson's 
Fancy,"  "Broken  Snowballs,"  "Single 
Snowballs,"  "Double  Compass,"  "Ris- 
ing Sun,"  "Laurel  Blossoms,"  "La- 
fayette's Fancy,"  and  "Blazing 
Star."  The  coverlets  that  Sarah  wove 
are  in  possession  of  many  families  in 
many  states;  but  if  one  of  them  should 
be  brought  to  her,  she  would  know  it 
at  once  and  name  the  pattern  without 
hesitation.  The  memory  of  her  hard 
toil  at  the  loom  has  destroyed  her  appre- 
ciation of  her  own  work,  but  she  say&: 
"The  old  loom,  like  the  old  oaken 
bucket,  is  'dear  to  my  heart.'"  Mother 
La  Tourrette  is  dead  these  many  years 
and  there  is  no  one  to  spin  the  linen 
thread.     Sarah's  dim  eyes  can  no  longer 

[211] 


A    BOOK    OF    HAND-WOVEN    COVERLETS 

see  through  the  mysteries  of  a  Jac- 
quard  pattern,  and  no  hand  will  ever 
again  set  in  motion  the  machinery  of 
that  loom,  yet  the  weaver  will  cherish 
it  till  death,  as  an  old  warrior  cher- 
ishes his  sword  or  an  old  musician  his 
violin.  Scattered  all  over  the  older 
states  you  find  these  disused  looms. 
I  think  of  them  standing  in  dusty  lofts 
and  deserted  cabins,  and  then  I  think 
of  Tom  Moore's  lament  over  the  harp 
of  Tara: 

"  The  harp  that  once  thro'  Tara's  halls 
The  soul  of  music  shed, 
Now  hangs  as  mute  on  Tardus  walls 
As  if  that  soul  were  dead." 

To    me    the    unstrung    loom    is    as 

deeply    poetic    as    the    unstrung    harp. 

[212] 


A    BOOK   OF    HAND-WOVEN    COVERLETS 

Scott  sang  the  passing  of  minstrelsy, 
and  there  should  be  another  Scott  or 
another  Moore  to  sing  the  Passing  of 
the  Last  Weaver  and  the  Lay  of  the 
Ancient  Loom. 


[213] 


VIII 
THE   STORIED   COVERLET 


VIII 
THE   STORIED   COVERLET 

"/  cannot  tell  how  the  truth  may  be, 
I  say  the  tale  as  ^tzvas  said  to  me." 

HE  handicraftsman  will 
tell  you  that  a  cov- 
erlet is  "a  cotton 
foundation  overshot 
with  wool,"  and  this 
definition  will  suffice  for  those  to 
whom  "A  primrose  by  the  river's  brim" 
is  "a  yellow  primrose"  and  nothing 
more.  But  around  some  of  these  old 
coverlets  hangs  a  fringe  of  memories 
and  traditions,  little  stories  of  life,  love, 

and    death,    and    listening    to    these    the 
[217] 


A    BOOK   OF    HAND-WOVEN    COVERLETS 

faded  cover  becomes  "a  weird  palimp- 
sest" under  whose  threads  we  read 
through  the  mazes  of  the  pattern  the 
record  of  "a  spectral  past." 

A  daring  colorist  was  she  who  wove 
the  mountain  coverlet,  and  blended 
the  rich  blue  with  dull  scarlet  like 
the  coals  of  a  smouldering  fire.  Tra- 
dition says  that  during  the  Civil 
War  some  Union  soldiers  raided  the 
mountains  and  one  of  them  carried 
away  this  coverlet  as  contraband  of 
war.  Perhaps  the  red  and  blue,  like 
the  colors  of  the  national  flag,  pleased 
his  taste,  and  perhaps  he  thought  that 
taking  an  old  woman's  bed-cover  was 
a  safe  and  easy  form  of  loot.     But  the 

"kivers"   of    the   mountain  woman   are 
[218I 


A   MOUNTAIN   " KIVER'' 


THE  age  of  this  coverlet  is  un- 
known, but  as  it  was  ^''con- 
sidered old  before  the  Civil  War''  it 
must  be  at  least  a  hundred  years  old. 
Owned  by  Miss  Elizabeth  Danger- 
field,  Lexington,  Ky.,  to  whom  it 
was  given  by  the  wife  of  James  B. 
Howard,  of  Breathitt  County,  Ky. 


A    BOOK    OF    HAND-WOVEN    COVERLETS 

to  her  what  ancestral  portraits  and 
family  silver  are  to  the  woman  of  the 
lowlands.  The  owner  of  the  "kiver" 
followed  the  marauders,  forced  her  way 
into  the  presence  of  the  commanding 
officer,  and  asserted  her  right  to  search 
the  camp  for  the  lost  treasure.  I  think 
the  officer  must  have  recognized  in  this 
woman  something  that  made  her  kin 
to  him  and  to  his  soldiers,  for  he  gave 
her  permission  to  make  the  search  and 
she  left  the  camp  in  triumph,  bearing 
away  her  coverlet,  a  red  and  blue  "badge 
of  courage."  The  marks  of  fire  are  on 
this  old  bed-cover  and  through  its  bar- 
baric colors  flames  the  spirit  of  fierce 
daring   that  comes   to   the   mountaineer 

from  the  days  of  Hengist  and  Horsa. 
[219] 


A    BOOK   OF    HAND-WOVEN    COVERLETS 

Among  my  photographs  I  have  one  of 
a  fraction  of  a  coverlet  which  in  its  en- 
tirety was  once  a  cherished  heirloom 
in  the  family  of  the  present  owner.  In 
the  division  of  their  father's  estate  four 
sisters  contended  for  the  possession  of 
this  coverlet.  Each  had  an  equal  right 
to  it  and  not  one  of  the  four  would  relin- 
quish her  claim.  Finally  an  old  friend 
of  the  family  was  called  in  to  arbitrate 
the  matter.  Following  Solomon's  ex- 
ample he  decided  that  the  precious 
fabric  should  be  cut  into  four  parts  and 
one-fourth  given  to  each  sister.  The 
sense  of  justice  in  these  sisters  was 
stronger  than  their  love  for  beauty  and 
they  consented  to  the  mutilation  of 
the  coverlet.     I  fancy  each  one  watch- 

r  220 1 


A    BOOK   OF    HAND-WOVEN    COVERLETS 

ing  the  cutting  with  a  jealous  eye  and 
'  carefully  measuring  her  fourth  to  see 
if,  perchance,  she  might  have  an  inch 
or  so  less  than  her  share. 

This  story  lacks  the  quality  of  sweet- 
ness, but  under  the  apparent  sordidness 
of  the  four  women  I  see  the  strong 
sense  of  right,  the  stern  determination 
to  have  one's  right  which  we  call  "the 
spirit  of  '76."  I  am  sure  those  four 
sisters  were  true  Daughters  of  the  Amer- 
ican Revolution  and  I  hope  their  love  for 
justice    yet    lives   in    their   descendants. 

With  two  Mohawk  Valley  coverlets 
goes  a  tale  of  the  great-grandmother 
who  fled  from  the  tomahawk  and  fire- 
brand   of   Butler   and    his    Indians   and 

came  as  a  bride  to  Pennsylvania  over  a 

[221  ] 


A    BOOK    OF    HAND-WOVEN    COVERLETS 

hundred  years  ago.  When  Butler 
attacked  the  Cherry  Valley  settlement 
her  father's  house  was  burned  and  the 
family  fled  to  the  forts  for  protection, 
carrying  with  them  as  much  of  their 
household  goods  as  they  could  rescue. 
There  was  a  coverlet  in  process  of 
weaving,  and  before  the  Indians  applied 
the  torch  to  the  cabin  they  took  the 
web  from  the  loom  and  later  cut  it 
into  strips  for  belts.  Besides  looting 
and  burning  the  house,  they  carried 
away  two  little  boys.  Sad  memories 
to  cluster  around  a  fabric  woven  for 
warmth,  comfort,  and  beauty!  If  one 
lay  down  to  rest  under  such  a  cover- 
let, his  sleep  might  be  broken  by  dreams 
of  fire,  murder,  and  rapine. 

[  222  ] 


THE  MARTHA  SHEPHERD  COVERLET 


WOVEN  in  Belmont  County, 
Ohio,  in  the  latter  part  of 
the  Revolutionary  War,  by  an  E^ig- 
lish  weaver,  —  Mowry.  Owned  by 
Martha  Shepherd's  great-grand- 
daughter. Miss  Lucy  Wheeler,  Dan- 
ville, HI.  In  Virginia  a  similar 
patterfi  is  called  "Windows  and 
Doors." 


.V 


A    BOOK    OF    HAND-WOVEN    COVERLETS 

A  great-great-granddaughter  of  Martha 
Shepherd  sent  me  the  picture  of  her  cover- 
let, and  a  story  that  takes  us  back  to 
heroic  days. 

Martha  was  one  of  ten  children  born 
to  Thomas  Shepherd  and  his  wife  Eliz- 
abeth Van  Metre.  Thomas  was  a  mill- 
wright, the  founder  of  Shepherdstown, 
Virginia,  and  the  man  for  whom  the 
town  was  named.  His  oldest  child  was 
a  son,  David,  born  in  1734.  David 
emigrated  to  the  western  country  in 
1773,  and  at  the  age  of  thirty-nine 
was  appointed  Commissary  of  Ohio 
County.  In  1774  he  pre-empted  a  claim 
at  the  forks  of  Wheeling  Creek  and 
erected    a    stockade    which    he    called 

Shepherd's     Fort.     When     the     Indians 
1 223] 


A    BOOK    OF    HAND-WOVEN    COVERLETS 

w^ere  ravaging  this  part  of  the  country 
in  1777,  Governor  Patrick  Henry  ap- 
pointed him  County  Lieutenant  w^ith 
headquarters  at  Fort  Henry,  now  Fin- 
castle.  In  the  family  history  where 
Col.  David  Shepherd's  gallant  deeds 
are  recorded,  the  only  mention  of  his 
sister  Martha  is  that  she  was  born  in 
a  certain  year  and  married  in  a  certain 
year,  but  from  the  following  story  we 
learn  that  the  spirit  of  the  warrior  and 
frontiersman  lived  also  in  this  maiden 
of  colonial  days. 

After  the  Shepherd  family  moved  to 
Ohio,  it  was  Martha  Shepherd's  cus- 
tom to  go  at  intervals  to  Fort  Henry, 
taking   a    load    of    ginseng.     She   would 

ride  one  horse  and  lead  another  to  bring 
[224] 


A    BOOK   OF    HAND-WOVEN    COVERLETS 

back  the  merchandise  she  would  get 
in  exchange  for  the  ginseng.  On  one 
occasion  she  did  not  return  as  quickly 
as  usual.  When  she  was  three  days  over- 
due the  family  began  to  be  extremely 
anxious.  It  was  spring-time  and  all 
the  streams  were  out  of  their  banks. 
Hostile  Indians  and  British  were  nu- 
merous, and  as  the  Shepherd  family  gath- 
ered around  the  fire  on  the  night  of 
the  third  day,  they  thought  fearfully 
of  all  the  horrible  things  that  might 
befall  a  young  woman  travelling  alone 
through  the  wilderness,  and  decided 
that  early  the  next  morning  they  would 
go  in  search  of  her.  Suddenly  out  of 
the  darkness  they  heard  a  familiar  voice 
calling,  first  like  an  owl:  "Whoo-oo!" 
[225] 


A    BOOK    OF    HAND-WOVEN    COVERLETS 

and   then   saying:   "Hurry  up,   and    let 
down  the  bars!'* 

Joyfully  they  hurried  up;  down  came 
the  bars,  and  a  tired  little  woman  was 
lifted  from  her  horse  and  carried  into 
the  house.  She  had  "just  stopped  over 
for  a  few  days  in  Fort  Henry."  The 
courage  of  a  race  is  not  to  be  estimated 
solely  by  the  courage  of  its  sons,  and 
when  we  think  of  this  fearless  pioneer 
girl  riding  alone  through  the  virgin  for- 
est, fording  swollen  streams  and  brav- 
ing yet  greater  dangers,  we  see  the 
reason  for  that  miracle  of  conquest 
wrought  by  a  band  of  ragged  Ameri- 
can rebels  over  the  redcoats  of  King 
George. 

On   the   back  of  one   picture   is    this 

[226] 


A    BOOK  OF   HAND-WOVEN    COVERLETS 

inscription:     ''Spun     and     woven      by 

Lucetta  ,   my  grandfather's    first 

wife." 

Here  is  the  history  of  the  "first  wife," 
whose  title  to  remembrance  Hes  only 
in  the  things  she  spun  and  wove. 

She  was  a  New  Hampshire  girl  to 
whom  Love  came  earlier  than  he  comes 
to  most  of  us.  She  was  but  sixteen 
and  he  eighteen,  and  the  road  to  the 
marriage  altar  stretched  long  before 
them,  for  the  home  must  be  built,  the 
purse  filled,  and  childhood  outgrown 
before  the  wedding  day  could  be  set. 
"Work  and  wait,"  said  Love,  and  six 
years  they  obeyed  the  command,  walk- 
ing   happily    down     Courtship's    Lane. 

Six  springs,  six  summers,  six   autumns, 
[227] 


A    BOOK   OF    HAND-WOVEN    COVERLETS 

and  six  winters  were  hers  to  spend  in 
preparation  for  the  time  when  she  would 
joyfully  leave  the  empire  of  her  maiden- 
hood and  enter  on  the  wider  sovereignty 
of  wifehood. 

When  May  came  over  the  bleak  New 
England  hills,  she  might  walk  in  the  sun- 
shine and  gather  to  her  cheeks  the 
same  pink  that  flushed  the  flowers  of 
the  trailing  arbutus.  When  the  apple 
orchards  wooed  the  bee,  she  might  sit 
under  the  blossoming  boughs  and  dream 
of  the  time  when  her  life  would  flower 
even  as  the  tree.  When  the  noonday 
sun  of  summer  shone  hot  on  field  and 
garden,  she  might  gather  into  her  body 
the    same    magical    essence    that    turns 

the  flower  of  May  into  the  fruit  of  Octo- 
[228] 


A    BOOK   OF    HAND-WOVEN    COVERLETS 

ber;  and  thus  strengthened  she  could 
smile  fearlessly  in  the  face  of  winter 
and  make  every  north  wind  and  every 
snow  yield  her  a  tribute  of  health.  Surely 
she  would  not  be  found  unready  for  the 
marriage  day. 

When  she  told  her  father  of  her 
betrothal  he  said: 

"You  may  have  all  that  you  can  spin 
and  weave." 

It  was  a  liberal  permission  for  chose 
days  when  frugality  was  one  of  the 
cardinal  virtues,  and  at  the  seasons 
of  sheep-shearing  and  flax-gathering  the 
farmer  may  have  regretted  his  gen- 
erosity to  this  daughter  of  industry, 
for    through    all    the    lovely  changes  of 

the   seasons    she   spun   and    wove,   and 

[229] 


A    BOOK   OF    HAND-WOVEN    COVERLETS 

the  noise  of  loom  and  wheel  drowned 
every  whisper  from  the  lips  of  nature. 
When  the  years  of  waiting  ended  and 
the  bride  left  her  father's  house  she 
carried  with  her  as  dowry  forty  woolen 
sheets,  and  blankets,  linen  sheets, 
towels,  pillow-cases,  table-cloths,  che- 
mises, and  other  things  in  due  propor- 
tion; also  many  woven  coverlets,  one 
of  which  lies  to-day  in  stately  beauty 
on  the  bed  of  her  husband's  grand- 
daughter—  not  hers,  alas! 

I  know  she  displayed  her  stock  of 
household  goods  to  the  admiring  eyes 
of  friends  just  as  the  modern  bride 
displays  her  superfluous  silver  and  cut- 
glass,   her   imported   lingerie    and    Paris 

millinery,  and  we  need  no   historian  to 

[230] 


A    BOOK   OF   HAND-WOVEN    COVERLETS 

tell  US  of  the  solid  satisfaction  that 
filled  the  heart  of  the  bridegroom  as 
he  watched  Lucetta  storing  away  her 
linen  and  woolens  on  his  closet  shelves. 
Poor  little  bride!  There  was  no  one 
to  tell  her  that  a  woman's  life  consist- 
eth  not  in  the  abundance  of  the  things 
that  she  hath;  no  one  to  preach  to  her 
the  joyful  gospel  of  Christ  who 
would  have  us  live  as  the  birds  of 
the  air  and  the  flowers  of  the  field. 
When  she  went  to  church  on  Sunday 
and  sat  in  the  high-backed  pew  by  her 
mother's  side,  she  was  likely  to  hear  a 
sermon  whose  text  was  from  Proverbs, 
and  the  woman  lauded  by  the  preacher 
was  that  woman  who  rose  up  early  and 
worked  late,  who  laid  her  hands  to  the 
[231] 


A    BOOK    OF    HAND-WOVEN    COVERLETS 

Spindle  and  the  distaff,  who  clothed 
her  household  in  scarlet  and  made  her- 
self coverings  of  tapestry  and  clothing 
of  silk  and  purple,  who  made  fine  linen 
and  sold  it,  and  delivered  girdles  to 
the  merchants.  Doubtless  she  and  her 
lover  exchanged  shy  glances,  and  he 
thought  with  pride  how  much  she  was 
like  this  woman  of  the  Bible  whose 
price  Solomon  placed  above  rubies. 

The  maiden  who  toils  six  years  for 
love's  sake  has  a  right  to  expect  hap- 
piness, and  it  is  pleasant  to  know  that 
Lucetta  had  hers.  The  story  runs 
that  she  was  much  beloved  by  her 
husband's  family,  and  that  she  and 
her    husband    were    like    two     children 

playing     at     housekeeping.     But     their 

[232] 


BETTY   TEAGUE 


PILLOW  top  from  the  Allan- 
stand  Cottage  Industries ^  A she- 
ville,  N.C.  Woven  by  Mrs.  Cumi 
Woody,  N.C. 


A    BOOK   OF    HAND-WOVEN    COVERLETS 

joy  was  like  the  flower  of  an  hour.  In 
a  little  while  a  strange  weakness  stayed 
the  hands  of  the  young  wife.  A  color 
came  into  her  face,  but  it  was  not  the 
token  of  health.  The  light  in  her  eyes 
was  the  brilliance  of  a  fast-wasting 
taper,  and  the  warmth  in  her  blood 
was  the  fever  that  precedes  the  chill 
of  death.  A  day  came  when  she  spread 
her  bed  with  snowy  sheets  and  soft 
blankets  and  crept  between  them  never 
to  rise  again. 

Perhaps  as  she  lay  under  the  blue 
and  white  coverlet  watching  the  gray 
sand  of  life  and  the  gold  sand  of  love 
run  low  in  the  glass,  her  aching  heart 
told  her  that  a  woman's  life  is  more 
than  spinning  and  weaving,  and  a 
[233  ] 


A    BOOK    OF    HAND-WOVEN    COVERLETS 

woman's  body  more  than  woolen  sheets 
and  woven  coverlets. 

She  who  had  never  lingered  over 
any  task  was  not  long  at  the  task  of 
dying.  One  morning  her  face  lay  thin 
and  white  against  the  linen  pillow-case. 
The  neighbors  came  with  soft  footsteps 
and  whispered  words,  carried  the  bed- 
clothes out  into  the  sweet  spring  sun- 
shine, and  robed  her  body  for  the 
grave.  The  next  day  her  light  coffin  was 
borne  to  the  graveyard,  and  the  chief 
mourner  went  home  alone,  alone. 

With  every  cup  of  sorrow  Life  mer- 
cifully proffers  us  more  than  one  cup 
of  nepenthe,  and  surely  the  young  hus- 
band needed  to  drink  all  of  his  to  the 
last  drop.  Her  linen  covered  the  table 
[234] 


A    BOOK    OF    HAND-WOVEN    COVERLETS 

at  which  he  ate  his  soHtary  meals  with 
no  grace  save  a  groan.  When  he  dried 
his  face  on  one  of  Her  towels  some 
tears  must  have  mingled  with  the  cleans- 
ing water.  When  he  lay  warm  be- 
tween Her  woolen  sheets  did  he  not 
shiver  and  cry  aloud  at  the  thought  of 
Her  lying  cold  under  earth  and  sod 
and  graveyard  stone?  How  could  he 
forget  Her  ?     But  — 

"C/  all  strange  things  this  is  the  strangest  yet. 
That  we  can  love  and  lose  and  then  forget.''^ 

He  was  young.  There  were  other 
maidens  crossing  his  path  and  thwart- 
ing him  when  he  would  have  remem- 
bered. He  looked  into  their  eyes  and 
saw  what  he  had  seen  once  before  in 
Her  eyes.  Another  spring  brought  new 
[235] 


A    BOOK    OF    HAND-WOVEN    COVERLETS 

life  to  the  earth,  and  above  the  steady 

throb   of  sorrow  and  regret  he   felt   the 

impulse   of  that  old   primal   law  which 

says : 

"...  a  man  must  go  with  a  woman.'' 

Besides  —  Great  Heavens!  How  his 
house  needed  a  housekeeper!  So  in 
less  time  than  it  took  the  first  wife  to 
die  there  was  another  courtship,  an- 
other wedding,  and  the  desolate  house 
became  a  home  once  more. 

The    second    bride    brought    to    her 

husband    no    dowry    but   health    and    a 

care-free  habit  of  mind  that  made   her 

walk    lightly    over    the    responsibilities 

and    burdens    that    life    thrusts    in    our 

way.     The  days  of  her  courtship  were 

short   and    easy.     No    need    for   her    to 
[236] 


A    BOOK   OF    HAND-WOVEN    COVERLETS 

toil  when  the  fruit  of  another's  toil 
hung  within  reach  of  her  hands.  Joy- 
fully she  stepped  into  the  vacant  heart 
and  the  vacant  house.  Wifehood  was 
hers,  and  motherhood,  too.  Ah,  happy 
home!  But  on  All  Souls'  Eve  I  know 
a  lonely  little  ghost  flitted  out  from 
the  old  graveyard  and  stole  into  the 
house  that  once  was  hers,  paused 
beside  the  bed  where  the  new  wife 
slumbered  under  Her  sheets.  Her  cover- 
let, and  then  fled  forlorn  and  bewil- 
dered back  to  the  place  of  ghosts. 

In   the  old  graveyard    you  may  read 
the  epitaph: 

^^Fare  thee  well,  my  kind  husband,^^  said  she; 

'^Now  from  thy  fond  bosom  I  leap 
With  Jesus  my  bride-groom  to  be, 
My  flesh  in  the  tomb  for  to  sleep." 

[237] 


A    BOOK   OF   HAND-WOVEN    COVERLETS 

Poor  little  childless  first  wife,  so 
soon  displaced,  so  soon  forgotten! 
There  are  no  children  or  grandchil- 
dren to  visit  the  old  graveyard  where 
her  flesh  sleeps,  but  as  long  as  the 
threads  of  her  "Cross  and  Circle*'  hold 
together,  Lucetta  will  be  remembered, 
for  a  coverlet  is  a  better  memorial  than  a 
gravestone,  even  though  it  be  of  granite. 

"A  foundation  of  cotton  or  linen 
overshot  with  wool?"  Not  for 
Lucetta's  coverlet  this  barren  defini- 
tion. Its  warp  is  not  mere  linen 
thread.  It  was  spun  from  the  substance 
that  we  call  human  life,  and  the  colors 
of  its  woof  are  the  rainbow  hues  of  a 
woman's  hopes  and  joys. 

[238] 


THE    DEBORAH    PARKER    COVERLET 


TAN  and  white  coverlet^  all  wool. 
Woven  in  lygS.  The  design 
is  Scandinavian.  Owned  by  Airs. 
Charles  Stebbins,  Deerfield,  Mass. 
Name  of  design  unknown.  The 
corner  shows  the  '' Sunrise"  pat- 
tern. 


IX 

THE  ANCIENT  COVERLET 


IX 


THE  ANCIENT   COVERLET 

Though  I  look  old,  yet  am  I  strong  and  lusty.'* 

^OT  only  are  the  colors 
of  the  coverlet  won- 
derfully lasting,  but 
there  is  a  quality  in 
the  homespun  thread 
that  resists  the  moth  of  time,  and  in 
all  my  searching  I  have  found  but  one 
really  worn-out  coverlet. 

Walking  across  a  farm  one  spring 
day  I  passed  the  cabin  of  the  negro 
tenant.     On   a    clothes-line    in    front   of 

the  house  hung  a  curious  object.     Was 
[241] 


A    BOOK   OF    HAND-WOVEN    COVERLETS 

it  a  coverlet  or  a  calico  quilt?  I  went 
nearer  and  discovered  it  to  be  a  little 
of  both.  The  foundation  was  a  ragged 
calico  quilt.  To  reinforce  its  waning 
strength  Aunt  Dinah  had  quilted  over 
it  a  blue  and  white  coverlet  which  hung 
in  melancholy  tatters  against  the  back- 
ground of  faded  patchwork.  The  sep- 
arate tatters  were  so  small  that  the 
design  of  the  weaving  could  not  be 
determined,  and  as  I  gazed  sorrowfully 
at  the  strange  sight  of  a  coverlet  in 
ruins,  I  tried  to  imagine  what  hard 
usage  had  reduced  that  robust  fabric 
to  a  mass  of  worthless  rags.  For  with 
only  tolerable  care  the  life  of  a  cover- 
let  is   longer   than   the   allotted   life    of 

man.     I    find   on   every   hand   coverlets 

[242] 


GOVERNOR'S  GARDEN 


SPUN  and  woven  in  1810.  The 
warp  is  linen  overshot  with 
blue  wool.  Owned  hy  Mrs.  Charles 
Stebbins,  Deerfield,  Mass. 


A    BOOK    OF    HAND-WOVEN    COVERLETS 

that  have  been  used  for  seventy-five 
years  or  more  and  are  still  perfectly 
preserved. 

The  hundred-year-old  Governor's 
Garden  has  served  three  generations 
as  a  best  bed-spread,  "being  kept  very- 
choice,  carefully  folded  in  newspaper, 
and  used  only  on  state  occasions." 
There  is  nothing  in  its  general  appear- 
ance to  contradict  the  belief  that  it  may 
last  another  hundred  years,  but  perhaps 
when  a  coverlet  does  go  to  pieces,  its 
going  is  like  that  of  the  **One  Hoss 
Shay." 

The   owner   of    the   one-hundred-and- 

forty-year-old      coverlet,      whose      yarn 

was  spun  in  Scotland,  says:  "To-day  it 

is    unfaded    and    not     threadbare    any- 

[243] 


A    BOOK    OF    HAND-WOVEN    COVERLETS 

where  except  on  the  hem.  The  blue 
is  as  bright  as  ever  and  the  white  is 
clear  and  unyellowed  by  age." 

I  have  heard  of  a  double-woven 
coverlet  that  was  cut  into  carpet  rags 
—  (a  woman  who  would  destroy  a 
family  coverlet  to  make  a  rag-carpet 
would  be  capable  of  using  her  grand- 
mother's tombstone  for  a  biscuit  block 
or  a  door-step)  —  and  another  of  which 
nothing  remains  but  a  tattered  corner 
bearing  the  weaver's  name  and  a  date: 

H.  W.  Tilton.    1835 
yet    I    find    it    hard    to    think    of    any 
lawful    usage    wearing    out    a    double- 
woven   coverlet. 

We  read  the  dates  on  these  old  cover- 
lets and  exclaim: 

[244] 


A    VARIATION  OF  ''LOVER'S  KNOT 


OWNED  hy  Mrs.  Henrietta  L. 
Dunlap  Painter,  Mount  Ver- 
non, Ohio.  The  wool  for  this  cov- 
erlet zuas  spun  in  Scotland  in  IJS^ 
hy  Mrs.  Painter  s  great- grandmother, 
then  a  girl  of  sixteen. 


i 


A    BOOK   OF    HAND-WOVEN    COVERLETS 

"Some  smack  of  age  in  you;  some 
relish  of  the  saltiness  of  time!"  and 
half-forgotten  history,  page  by  page, 
unrolls  before  us. 

In  1720,  when  Benjamin  Henry's  wife 
was  threading  her  shuttle  in  her  Ver- 
mont home,  Franklin  was  a  boy  in  his 
teens,  George  I  was  on  the  throne,  and 
England  was  still  the  beloved  "mother- 
country";  France  was  gaining  a  foot- 
hold in  the  New  World,  and  in  conflicts 
with  the  French  and  the  Indians  the 
colonists  were  whetting  the  swords  that 
fifty-five  years  later  they  were  to  draw 
in  defence  of  American  liberty. 

In  1762  the  American  colonies  were 
groaning  under  the  Acts  of  Trade,  the 
Navigation  Laws,  and  the  Writs  of 
iHS] 


A    BOOK    OF    HAND-WOVEN    COVERLETS 

Assistance;  Patrick  Henry  was  making 
fiery  speeches  in  defence  of  the  people's 
rights,  and  about  this  time  an  Irish 
immigrant  in  the  Old  Dominion  was 
weaving  Miss  Dangerfield's  coverlet  by 
a  pattern  which  she  had  brought  to 
"Ameriky"  from  the  "ould  counthry." 
In  1775,  in  the  village  of  Ayr,  a  peas- 
ant boy  was  following  the  plough  and 
dreaming  of  the  time  when  he  would 
sing  a  song  "for  Scotland's  sake."  In 
France  the  reign  of  Louis  XVI  was  just 
beginning;  Marie  Antoinette  was  amus- 
ing  herself  in  ways  forbidden  to  roy- 
alty; the  peasants  were  eating  the  bark 
of  trees,  while  nobles  and  priests  lived 
in  reckless  splendor;  Voltaire  was  writ- 
ing; the  people  were  thinking,  and  above 
[246] 


OLD   IRELAND 


THIS  coverlet  was  woven  in 
Bath  County,  Pa.,  one  hun- 
dred and  fifty  years  ago.  The  for- 
mer ozvner  was  an  Irish  woman 
who  died,  the  last  of  her  race,  at  the 
age  of  ninety.  According  to  family 
tradition  the  coverlet  was  woven  by 
her  grandmother,  who  brought  the 
pattern  from  Irela^id.  The  present 
owner  is  Miss  Elizabeth  Danger- 
field  of  Lexington,  Ky. 


A    BOOK   OF    HAND-WOVEN    COVERLETS 

the  music  and  laughter  of  the  Court 
of  Versailles  you  could  hear  a  murmur 
that  later  grew  into  the  tumult  of  the 
Commune.  In  America,  too,  the 
people  were  thinking,  and  now  and 
then  a  man  would  put  the  burden  of 
his  thought  into  heroic  words.  It  was 
in  this  year  that  Patrick  Henry  said: 
"Give  m.e  liberty  or  give  me  death!" 
that  Paul  Revere  made  his  midnight 
ride;  that  the  minute-men  assembled 
on  the  common  of  Lexington,  and  in 
the  dark  hour  just  before  the  dawn  the 
first  blood  of  the  Revolution  stained 
the  dust  of  the  road  to  Concord.  In 
1775  old  Israel  Putnam  left  his  plow; 
Ethan  Allen  demanded  the  surrender 
of  Ticonderoga  "In  the  name  of  the 
[247] 


A    BOOK    OF    HAND-WOVEN    COVERLETS 

Great  Jehovah  and  the  Continental  Con- 
gress,'* and  Washington  took  command 
of  the  army  whose  victories  were  to 
destroy  the  power  of  kings  and  hght 
the  lamp  of  liberty  in  a  New  World. 

A  glorious  page  of  history  is  that 
which  holds  the  record  of  1775!  And 
while  the  God  of  Nations  was  trying  the 
souls  of  men  and  sending  them  forth 
to  battle,  in  every  Puritan  home  the 
women  were  fighting  their  battles  with 
distaff  and  loom  and  needle,  and  the 
work  of  their  hands  was  so  established 
that  some  of  it  stands  to-day.  Where 
are  the  silken  covers  of  Marie  Antoi- 
nette's couch  .f'  Torn  to  pieces  and  scat- 
tered to  the  autumn  wind  by  the  mob 

that   attacked   Versailles    on    that   wild 
[248] 


A    BOOK   OF    HAND-WOVEN    COVERLETS 

October  night.  But  not  a  thread  is 
missing  from  the  blue  and  red  cover- 
let that  a  certain  Puritan  housewife 
wove  in  1775. 

When  the  tan  and  white  coverlet 
with  the  sunrise  pattern  in  its  corners 
was  taken  from  the  loom,  America  was 
standing  doubtful  and  hesitant  in  the 
period  of  uncertainty  that  always  comes 
after  struggle  and  acquisition.  She  was 
face  to  face  with  the  liberty  for  which 
she  had  fought  and  bled,  and  wondering 
what  she  would  do  with  it  after  all.  In 
France  the  crimes  committed  in  the 
name  of  liberty  had  made  that  name 
hateful  to  many.  Marat,  Danton,  and 
Robespierre  had  quaffed  the  wine  of 
death  from  the  same  cup  they  had 
[249] 


A    BOOK    OF    HAND-WOVEN    COVERLETS 

pressed  to  the  lips  of  Louis  and  Marie 
Antoinette.  Weary  of  their  orgy  of 
liberty,  the  people  were  standing  bewil- 
dered. The  hour  called  for  "a  head 
and  a  sword,"  and  in  answer  to  the 
call  came  a  young  Corsican  officer, 
Napoleon  Bonaparte,  who  was  to 
build  a  military  despotism  on  the 
ruined  throne  of  the  Capets.  John 
Adams  was  president  of  the  United 
States  and  Thomas  Jefferson  vice- 
president.  Talleyrand  was  playing  his 
game  of  diplomacy  with  the  American 
envoys,  Pinckney,  Marshall,  and  Gerry. 
Captain  Decatur  was  cruising  the  seas 
and  capturing  the  privateer  ships  of 
France;    the    people    were    finding    the 

problems    of   liberty   as    hard   as   those 

[250] 


SUNRISE 


'OVEN    m    iy20    by    Mrs. 

Benjamin  Henry,  Halifax, 
Vt.  The  great  age  of  the  cover- 
let shows  plainly  in  the  picture, 
the  light  spots  being  places  where 
the  wool  is  worn  off  from  the 
linen  foundation.  This  resembles 
"'Sunrise  on  the  Walls  of  Troy,'' 
which  is  sometimes  called  "Jeffer- 
son's Fancy." 


A    BOOK    OF    HAND-WOVEN    COVERLETS 

of  tyranny  had  been,  and  w^hen  the 
AHen  and  Sedition  Laws  were  passed, 
only  Virginia  and  Kentucky  had  faith 
enough  in  Hberty  to  vote  against  them. 
A  troubled,  unrestful  year  was  1798, 
but  in  older  lands  there  was  time  for 
the  poetry  of  Wordsworth,  Cowper, 
Goethe,  and  Schiller,  the  philosophy  of 
Kant,  and  the  art  of  Canova,  Flaxman, 
Thorwaldsen,  Reynolds,  Gainsborough, 
and  Turner,  and  everywhere  time  for 
the  ancient  business  of  falling  in  love, 
giving  in  marriage,  and  going  to  house- 
keeping. It  is  a  matter  of  authentic 
record  that  in  this  year  a  New  Eng- 
land girl,  Deborah  Parker,  was  mar- 
ried,   and    an    important    part    of    her 

bridal  outfit  was  a  tan  and  white   cov- 

[251] 


A    BOOK    OF    HAND-WOVEN    COVERLETS 

erlet  made  of  wool  which  was  taken 
from  the  sheep's  back,  dyed,  spun,  and 
woven  on  the  home  farm  of  the  bride. 
It  is  one  hundred  and  fourteen  years 
old  in  this  year  of  191 2,  and  still  it  holds 
both  usefulness  and  beauty  as  in  the 
day  when  the  young  wife  made  her 
bridal  bed  and  draped  it  with  her  cher- 
ished coverlet. 

Will  any  work  of  your  hand  or  of 
mine  last  as  long? 

When  Waity  Staples  wove  her  tap- 
estry coverlet  of  snowy  white  the  ques- 
tion of  foreign  trade  was  vexing  the 
nation;  the  English  were  capturing 
American  vessels  and  impressing  Ameri- 
can seamen.     Napoleon  was  Emperor  of 

France.     His  star  had  reached  its  zenith 

[252] 


A    BOOK   OF    HAND-WOVEN    COVERLETS 

and  was  beginning  to  go  down ;  Josephine 
was  divorced;  behind  him  lay  the  splen- 
did victories  of  the  Pyramids,  Aboukir, 
Marengo,  and  Jena;  before  him  lay 
defeat,  abdication,  and  exile.  James 
Madison  was  president  of  the  United 
States,  and  the  clouds  of  the  Second 
War  of  Independence  were  gathering  on 
the  horizon.  Thomas  Jefferson  in  the 
seclusion  of  Monticello  was  dreaming  of 
the  great  university  that  became  an  im- 
mortal reality  a  few  years  later.  In 
England  the  musical  cantos  of  "Mar- 
mion"  and  "The  Lady  of  the  Lake"  were 
on  every  lip,  and  in  America,  Emerson, 
a  child  of  seven,  played  in  the  commons 
around  Boston. 

"What  should  we  speak  of  when  we 
[253] 


A    BOOK   OF    HAND-WOVEN    COVERLETS 

are  as  old   as  you?"  asks   Arviragus  in 
"Cymbeline." 

A  certain  awe  comes  over  me  as  I 
think  that  if  I  were  as  old  as  that  Ver- 
mont coverlet  woven  by  Dame  Henry, 
and  if  the  trailing  years  had  not  blurred 
the  writing  on  the  tablets  of  memory, 
I  should  be  talking  of  Bonaparte  and 
Elba,  of  the  flight  to  Varennes,  of  Lord 
Nelson  and  Trafalgar,  of  General  Wash- 
ington and  Cornwallis,  of  Lafayette  and 
Benjamin  Franklin.  And  if  but  one  of 
those  ancient  webs  lay  before  me  in 
some  dark  hour  when  the  senses  are  half- 
asleep  and  only  the  imagination  wakes, 
I  might  see  the  gleam  of  Charlotte 
Corday's  dagger,  the  flash  of  the  queen's 
necklace;  I  might  hear  the  roar  of  the 
[254] 


THE    JVAITY    STAPLES    COVERLET 


PURE  white  tapestry  weave  cov~ 
erlet  made  in  Illinois  in  1810 
by  Mrs.  JVaity  Staples.  The  cen- 
tral design  resembles  that  of  Aliss 
Dangerfield'' s  Irish  coverlet. 


''^^^^^^^^^^I 


A    BOOK    OF    HAND-WOVEN    COVERLETS 

Commune  or  the  clangor  of  the  bell 
that  proclaimed  Liberty  to  all  the  na- 
tions, and  the  clumsy  old  bed-covering 
would  seem  like  Aladdin's  magic  car- 
pet bearing  me  back  to  that  glorious 
century  when  a  nation  in  the  Old 
World  and  another  in  the  New  turned 
their  faces  towards  democracy. 


255 


X 

THE  HEIRLOOM  UNAPPRECIATED 


X 


THE  HEIRLOOM  UNAPPRECIATED 

"  What  we  do  not  understand^  we  do  not  -possess ^ 

I  HE  mania  for  collect- 
ing things  is  a  delight- 
ful form  of  madness. 
Did  you  ever  pick  up 
a  dusky  painting  in  an 
old  junk-shop  and  later  discover  it  to 
be  a  masterpiece?  Did  you  ever  buy 
an  old  violin  for  a  song  and  find  the 
soul  of  music  in  its  battered  frame? 
Are  your  pilgrim  feet  set  in  the  path 
whose  ultimate  shrine  is  a  battered 
mahogany  sideboard  or  a  four-poster 
bed?  Do  you  collect  facts  instead  of 
[259] 


A    BOOK   OF    HAND-WOVEN    COVERLETS 

things,  and  are  you  trying  by  a  chain 
of  genealogical  facts  to  prove  your  kin- 
ship to  Lord  Baltimore  or  William  the 
Conqueror?  Or  are  you  searching  for 
some  lost  ancestor  whose  name  is  the 
only  evidence  needed  to  establish  your 
claim  to  a  vast  fortune? 

If  you  are  a  collector  of  anything 
whatever,  you  can  understand  how 
one  is  drawn  into  the  Quest  of  the 
Woven  Coverlet.  Here,  as  in  any  other 
pleasant  madness,  are  mystery,  romance, 
surprise.  The  past  becomes  as  vital 
and  clear  as  the  passing  hour;  names 
of  melody  sing  themselves  in  your 
brain;  beautiful  colors  and  forms  fill 
your    vision;    you    see    beauty    sacredly 

cherished  or  fallen    and   profaned;    and 

[260] 


NINE  DIAMONDS 


PILLOW  top  from  the  Allan- 
stand  Cottage  Industries,  Ashe- 
ville,  N.C.  Wove7i  by  Mrs.  Cumi 
Woody,  N.C. 


A    BOOK    OF    HAND-WOVEN    COVERLETS 

you  hear  stories  that  bring  to  mind 
Cinderella  in  the  kitchen,  royal  prin- 
cesses disguised  in  beggars'  rags,  queens 
in  exile,  poets  starving  in  garrets,  and 
many  another  instance  of  worth  and 
beauty  unappreciated  by  an  ignorant 
world. 

"Yes,  I  have  two  coverlets,"  said  a 
friend  in  answer  to  my  question. 
"But  they  are  on  the  cook's  bed,  and 
so  dirty  I  am  ashamed  to  show  them 
to  you." 

"I  used  to  have  three  or  four,"  said 

another,    "but    I    gave    them    away    to 

the     family     servants,     and     now    my 

daughter    is    trying    to    buy    one    for  a 

couch    cover." 

*'I  used  to  have  two,"  said  a  third, 
[261] 


A    BOOK    OF    HAND-WOVEN    COVERLETS 

"but  I  covered  the  ironing  board  with 
one  and  it  was  scorched  to  pieces." 

"Those  old  blue  and  white  cover- 
lets?" said  a  fourth.  "Why,  last  sum- 
mer, when  I  was  at  home,  down  in 
Georgia,  the  dog  was  sleeping  on  one 
under  the  back  porch." 

"Yes,  I  have  one,"  said  a  fifth,  and 
she  brought  out  a  gorgeous  "Whig 
Rose"  in  black,  red,  olive-green,  and 
ecru;  and  that  piece  of  weaving  fit  for 
a  queen's  portiere  was  serving  as  a 
mattress  cover  on  a  servant's  bed. 

I  knocked  one  day  at  the  door  of  an 
old-fashioned  house;  an  old-fashioned 
woman  opened  the  door  and  greeted  me 
with     outstretched     hands.     I     entered 

and   walked    through    the    old-fashioned 

[262] 


A    BOOK   OF    HAND-WOVEN    COVERLETS 


parlor.  On  the  beautiful  mahogany 
table  lay  a  sampler  worked  in  many 
colored  silks;  on  the  sampler  stood  a 
wonderful  old  lamp  resting  on  a  brass 
pedestal  and  shaded  by  an  exquisite 
cut-glass  globe;  this  lamp,  the  mis- 
tress of  the  house  said,  was  made  in 
the  days  when  lard  oil  was  used  for 
illuminating.  On  the  high,  ivory-white 
mantel  were  glass  candlesticks.  In  one 
corner  stood  a  mahogany  sofa,  hand- 
carved  and  built  on  lines  of  perfect 
grace  and  beauty.  Around  the  sofa 
and  table  stood  chairs  with  oddly  curved 
legs,  and  backs  too  beautiful  to  lean 
against.  It  was  the  parlor  of  our 
grandmother's   day,    the   day  of    ruffled 

shirt-bosoms,    gold-headed     canes,     and 

[263I 


A    BOOK   OF    HAND-WOVEN    COVERLETS 

fine  manners;  and  as  the  mistress  of 
the  house  began  to  talk,  her  words 
were  of  a  day  still  farther  off,  for  she 
told  the  story  of  her  great-grandfather, 
twice  married  and  the  father  of  thirty 
children  —  a  seafaring  man,  captured 
at  the  outbreak  of  the  Revolutionary 
War,  carried  to  England  and  held  a 
prisoner  for  three  years,  suffering  all 
the  cruelty  that  English  captors  could 
heap  on  a  "rebel  subject,"  and  finally 
escaping  and  returning  to  Virginia  to 
live  the  life  of  a  tobacco  planter  on  his 
vast  estates.  It  was  like  a  chapter  from 
"To  Have  and  To  Hold,"  and  while 
I  listened  I  thought:  "Surely  there  must 
be  a  coverlet  in  this  family." 

There   were    two.     From    the    depths 

[264] 


THE  ANTHONY  WAYNE  COVERLET 


OWNED  hy  Mrs.  H.  C.  Tor- 
rance, Pittsburg,  Pa.  The 
mother  of  Mrs.  Torrance  inherited 
it  from  a  niece  of  Gen.  Wayne. 
This  niece  inherited  most  of  her 
uncle' s  property,  and  it  has  always 
been  believed  that  the  coverlet  was 
one  of  his  possessions.  The  plate 
shows  the  worn  condition  of  the 
coverlet.  A  very  fine  piece  of  weav- 
ing- 


^^'j^*^'^ TuCMialar**^-*^''''*^*^*^'*^^^^^^^^^  ' iw^^^ * 'V *^  ■■»>"' *^  ' ^ ^  ■   '      ' 


^T^ff^m^^^n^^^iw^^^^^^^^Py^ 


mf^wmimf^mmwmmm'^i 


iemmmmmmm 


A    BOOK   OF    HAND-WOVEN    COVERLETS 

of  an  old  oak  chest  upstairs  she  brought 
them  forth,  and  we  carried  them  out 
of  doors,  where  the  rays  of  the  setting 
sun  could  light  up  the  splendid  color 
and  the  glorious  designs,  "Lover's 
Knot"  and  "Double  Bow  Knot,"  both 
dark  blue  and  white. 

"I  had  another  one,"  said  my  host- 
ess. "It  was  red  and  green,  but  I 
did  not  know  the  value  of  it  and  I  sold 
it  to  a  negro  woman  for  a  dollar,  and 
never  got  the  dollar.  No,  I  can't  trace 
it  up,  for  the  woman  who  bought  it  is 
dead  and  her  husband  went  away  from 
this  place  years  ago." 

A  tragic  story  this!  And  I  doubt 
not  that   in   her  mind,   as    in   my  own, 

that  green  and  red  coverlet  will  always 

[265] 


A    BOOK    OF    HAND-WOVEN    COVERLETS 

be  like  the  hound,  the  bay  horse,  and 
the  turtle-dove  that  Thoreau  lost  and 
never  found. 

When  the  Kentucky  farmer  starts  to 
town  with  a  load  of  tobacco  he  usually 
covers  the  precious  commodity  with  a 
tarpaulin,  which  is  the  proper  cover 
for  tobacco  and  a  sign  of  the  farmer's 
wealth  and  thrift.  But  there  is  no 
picturesqueness  about  a  tarpaulin,  and 
the  wagons  that  keep  me  looking  out 
of  the  window  and  flying  down  the 
street  all  winter  are  those  of  the  farm- 
ers who  cannot  afford  tarpaulins.  O, 
for  a  brush  and  skill  to  paint  a  pic- 
ture of  these  wagons  crawling  slowly 
along  the  'pike  under  the  winter  sun- 
shine, over  the  winter  snow,  while  every 
[  266  ] 


A    BOOK   OF    HAND-WOVEN    COVERLETS 

color  an  artist  ever  dreamed  of  shows 
startlingly  bright  or  dehcately  faded 
from  the  rag  carpets,  calico  quilts,  and 
old  coverlets  that  only  partly  hide  the 
"vile  weed"  of  the  rich  brown  color 
that  King  James  so  hated.  As  these 
wagons  trail  by  my  house,  a  cry  goes 
up  from  some  watcher:  "There  goes  a 
coverlet!"  I  rush  out  signalling  to  the 
man  on  the  wagon  and  begging  him 
to  let  me  see  that  old  coverlet,  while 
passers-by  stare  amazedly  at  the  sight  of 
a  bare-headed  woman  standing  in  Ken- 
tucky mud  or  melting  snow,  imploring  a 
tobacco  farmer  to  sell  her  a  ragged, 
filthy  bed-cover.  It  was  thus  that  I 
became    the    possessor    of    "Tennessee 

Trouble,"  a  pattern  I  had  long   desired 
[  267  ] 


A    BOOK   OF   HAND-WOVEN    COVERLETS 

to  see.  It  was  a  pitiable-looking  object, 
and  when  I  brought  it  into  the  house 
and  spread  it  on  the  parlor  floor  I  felt  like 
a  knight  who  had  rescued  a  fair  maiden 
from  captivity.  Man  and  beast,  earth, 
fire,  and  water  seemed  to  have  worked 
their  evil  will  on  the  once  lovely  thing. 
Five  inches  had  been  torn  from  the 
end  of  one  breadth  and  three  inches 
from  another.  One  breadth  was  torn 
in  two  and  there  was  a  jagged  rent  on 
one  edge  as  if  a  dog  had  clawed  it. 
Three  large  holes  had  been  burned  in 
it,  the  selvedge  was  ragged,  in  some 
places  the  wool  was  completely  worn 
off  from  the  cotton  foundation,  leaving 
a  large  bare  spot  like  a  piece  of  white 

paper,  and  its  colors  were  obscured   by 

[268] 


THE  DOJVNFALL   OF  PARIS 


WOVEN  in  North  Carolina 
three  generations  ago.  Some 
vandal  cut  this  coverlet  into  thirty- 
two  pieces^  hut  it  was  ^^ restored'''  by 
sewing  the  pieces  together.  I  first 
saw  it  on  a  load  of  tobacco,  and  the 
owner  of  the  tobacco,  Mr.  Kirk 
Bailey,  Richelieu,  Ky.,  kindly 
loaned  it  to  me  for  illustrating  pur- 
poses. The  name  of  the  desigri 
commemorates  the  ^ist  of  March, 
1814,  when  the  allied  armies  en- 
tered Paris  accompanied  by  the 
Emperor  of  Russia  and  the  King  of 
Prussia,  or  perhaps  the  yth  of  July, 
j8i^,  when  for  the  second  time  the 
allies  took  possession  of  the  French 
capital  and  Napoleon  s  power  was 
finally  broken. 


i  ■  ■  fifj^  If  ' 


A    BOOK   OF   HAND-WOVEN    COVERLETS 

mud  and  dust,  stained  with  tobacco, 
and  faded  by  long  exposure  to  untoward 
weather.  But  the  cleansing  waters 
whitened  and  brightened  it,  countless 
patches  and  darns  made  it  whole,  and 
now  its  soft  colors  and  elaborate  pat- 
tern delight  the  eye  as  it  reposes  on  the 
back  of  an  easy  chair,  where  after  all 
life's  hardships  it  is  having  an  old  age 

^^ Serene  and  bright 
And  lovely  as  a  Lapland  night^ 

In  like  manner  I  rescued  "Forty- 
Nine  Snowballs"  and  restored  it  to 
usefulness  and  beauty  after  it  had  suf- 
fered the  degradation  of  serving  as  a 
horse-blanket  in  the  stable  and  a  cover 
for    potatoes    down    in    the    cellar   of    a 

farm-house. 

[269I 


A    BOOK    OF    HAND-WOVEN    COVERLETS 

Desecration  and  humiliation  are  not 
always  the  lot  of  the  ancestral  cover- 
let. The  owner  of  the  *'Waity  Staples" 
coverlet  declares  that  she  welcomes  a 
spell  of  sickness  because  it  gives  her 
an  opportunity  to  use  that  beautiful 
white  spread.  The  owner  of  the  Mon- 
roe County  coverlets  says  that  five  hun- 
dred dollars  could  not  buy  them  from 
her,  but  I  usually  find  that  the  degree 
of  appreciation  accorded  to  the  family 
coverlet  results  merely  in  its  being  care- 
fully put  away.  The  family  portraits 
are  honorably  placed  on  the  walls;  the 
old  mahogany  sideboard  graces  the 
dining-room,  and  the  family  silver 
stands   on    its    poUshed    top,    while    the 

family    coverlet,    the    contemporary    of 

[270] 


A    BOOK    OF    HAND-WOVEN    COVERLETS 

all  these  things  and  the  most  beauti- 
ful of  all,  is  hidden  away  in  the  dark 
recesses  of  closet  or  chest;  and  in 
ignorance  of  the  noble  beauty  of  grand- 
mother's work,  we  buy  factory-made 
textiles  to  decorate  our  homes,  while 
servants  and  dogs  slumber  on  our  ances- 
tral coverlets! 

To  my  mind  there  is  more  of  prestige 
in  an  old  coverlet  than  in  anything  else 
that  comes  to  us  from  the  hands  of  the 
dead.  Whenever  I  find  one  I  try  to 
construct  its  biography,  asking  these 
questions :  Where  and  when  was  it  made  ? 
Who  spun  and  dyed  the  thread?  Who 
did  the  weaving?  Who  was  the  original 
owner  and   who  is   the   present    owner? 

As    these    questions    are    answered     the 
[271] 


A    BOOK   OF    HAND-WOVEN    COVERLETS 

history  of  the  coverlet  is  found  to  be, 
in  brief,  the  history  of  the  family  own- 
ing it. 

Where,  reader,  is  your  family  cover- 
let? In  a  dusty  garret  corner,  per- 
haps, or  buried  from  sight  under  the 
rubbish  of  the  lumber-room.  Wherever 
it  is,  go  bring  it  out  to  the  air  and  sun- 
shine. Spread  it  over  that  damask- 
covered  couch,  and  stand  off  a  little 
distance  so  that  you  may  study  the  pat- 
tern. How  queer  it  looks  surrounded 
by  the  furniture  and  bric-a-brac  of  a 
modern  parlor!  It  is  like  an  anachro- 
nism on  a  page  of  history  or  an  obsolete 
word  strayed  from  the  time  of  Shake- 
speare into   present-day  fiction,  and   its 

weight  is  as  "the  weary  weight  of  all 

[272] 


A    BOOK    OF    HAND-WOVEN    COVERLETS 

this  unintelligible  world."  You  think 
of  your  silken,  down-filled  coverlet  and 
wonder  how  any  one  could  sleep  under 
a  fabric  as  coarse  and  heavy  as  this 
coverlet.  But  its  weight  once  matched 
the  strength  of  the  hands  that  spun, 
dyed,  and  wove  it,  and  if  your  imagina- 
tive faculties  are  not  wholly  wasted 
away,  this  old  bed-cover  ought  to  bring 
you  face  to  face  with  your  foremother, 
as  worthy  a  dame  as  any  whose  names 
are  on  the  visiting  cards  that  fill  your 
silver  card  plate.  Unless  you  are  a 
Daughter  of  the  American  Revolution 
or  a  Colonial  Dame,  you  probably  do 
not  know  your  foremother's  name,  and 
if  she,  or  a  woman  like  her,  came  into 
your  parlor,  you  would  hesitate  about 
[273] 


A    BOOK   OF   HAND-WOVEN    COVERLETS 

asking  her  to  be  seated.  Your  hands 
are  soft,  white,  and  jewelled;  her  hands 
were  hard  and  knotted,  and  her  wedding 
ring  was  worn  to  a  thread  by  labors 
that  you  would  scorn.  Your  speech 
has  the  elegance  of  one  who  has  stud- 
ied in  school  and  college;  hers  was  plain 
and  ungrammatical.  You  hold  familiar 
converse  .  with  great  minds  in  the 
worlds  of  science,  philosophy,  history, 
art,  and  literature;  she  learned  her 
science,  philosophy,  and  history  from 
the  Bible.  "The  Pilgrim's  Progress"  was 
her  only  fiction,  all  the  poetry  and 
music  of  her  life  lay  between  the  covers 
of  the  hymn-book,  and  she  never  had 
a  glimpse  of  the  land  of  art  except  when 
she  dyed  her  woollen  thread  and  wove 
[274] 


A    BOOK   OF    HAND-WOVEN    COVERLETS 

her   coverlets,  or  pieced    a    calico  quilt, 
or    embroidered    a    sampler. 

There  was  nothing  aesthetic  about 
her  life,  and  the  word  "aesthetic"  was 
unknown  to  her,  but  her  love  of  beauty- 
was  deeper  and  sincerer  than  ours;  lux- 
ury had  not  enervated  the  sinews  of  her 
soul  or  her  body,  and  the  record  of  her 
tireless  industry  and  her  dumb  for- 
titude are  like  an  epic  poem.  Some 
call  themselves  high-born  if  they  can 
trace  their  ancestry  back  to  a  red- 
handed  warrior  or  a  degenerate  king. 
But  when  pride  of  blood,  place,  or 
wealth  swells  our  heart,  it  is  well  to 
remember  that  every  family  tree  has 
its  roots  in  the  life  of  the  common 
people,  and  though  coronets  and 
[275] 


A    BOOK   OF    HAND-WOVEN    COVERLETS 

Norman  blood  are  not  named  in  your 
pedigree,  a  hand-woven  coverlet  may 
be  your  genealogical  chart,  proving 
that  your  life  sprang  from  the  life  of 
a  woman  who  was  girded  with  strength 
and  who  never  "ate  the  bread  of  idle- 
ness," and  this  is  noble  birth. 

A  link  between  the  present  and  the 
past,  between  the  Old  World  and  the 
New,  between  you  and  your  fore- 
mother,  that  is  what  your  coverlet 
should  be  to  you.  Cherish  it  accord- 
ing to  its  real  worth,  and  if  you  are 
incapable  of  doing  this,  let  it  pass 
into  worthier  hands  than  yours;  for  a 
wave  of  wholesome  taste  is  sweeping 
over  the  world,  and  the  law  that  brings 

to  us  our  own  is  lifting  the  hand-woven 
[276] 


A    BOOK    OF    HAND-WOVEN    COVERLETS 

coverlet  out  of  obscurity  and  neglect 
into  an  atmosphere  of  loving  appre- 
ciation. The  old  Dutch  dame  "builded 
better  than  she  knew"  when  she  wove 
her  blue  and  white  coverlet.  I  think 
of  her  again  in  the  colonial  house,  in 
the  low-ceiled  room  where  the  pewter 
dishes  caught  the  light  that  came 
through  the  tiny  panes  of  glass;  then 
the  picture  fades  and  another  comes 
to  replace  it. 

I  see  a  reception  hall  in  an  Ameri- 
can palace  home.  It  is  not  common 
air,  but  music  and  perfume  that  those 
breathe  who  cross  that  lighted  thresh- 
old —  music  from  lips  in  whose  melody 
kings  have  delighted,  perfume  from  a 
thousand  flowers,  though  it  is  winter, 
[277] 


A    BOOK    OF    HAND-WOVEN    COVERLETS 

and  outside  the  snow  is  falling,  falling 
on  the  uniforms  of  the  tall  policemen 
who  watch  lest  an  unbidden  guest  stray 
into  the  festivity,  and  on  the  ragged 
shawl  of  the  beggar  who  looks  with 
evil,  envious  eyes  at  the  glowing  win- 
dows and  thinks  hungrily  of  the  crumbs 
that  fall  from  the  rich  man's  table. 

If  the  sturdy  Dutch  woman  crowned 
with  her  braided  hair  should  appear 
on  the  brilliant  scene  she  might  not 
recognize  her  great-granddaughter  in 
the  fragile,  elegant  creature  who  holds 
out  a  slender  hand  and  smiles  faintly 
at  each  new  guest.  But  she  would 
surely  know  her  own  handiwork  hanging 
there  in  the  arched  doorway  between  a 

Japanese  carving  and  an  Alma-Tadema. 

[278] 


A    BOOK    OF    HAND-WOVEN    COVERLETS 

It  has  covered  the  sleep  of  bride  and 
groom,  it  has  warmed  the  new-made 
mother  and  babe,  it  has  lain  in  straight 
solemn  folds  on  the  rigid  limbs  of  the 
dead,  and  now  the  hand  of  a  foreign 
ambassador  is  thrusting  it  aside,  and,  as 
he  passes,  the  jeweled  star  on  his  coat 
touches  the  homespun  folds  of  the  old 
blue  and  white  counterpane. 


[279] 


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